


Eye of the Hurricane

by hollytrees



Series: Elams College AU [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Multi, Sickfic, non-binary Lafayette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5697883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollytrees/pseuds/hollytrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliza didn’t know what she had expected when she asked Alex to get her a box of tissues, but it certainly wasn’t this. </p><p>(Or: Eliza gets sick and everyone reacts reasonably and no one freaks out at all. Not even a little bit.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Elizabeth Schuyler reached into the tissue box and swore when she found nothing inside. She flung the empty box across the room. It bounced off of the cement block wall and landed on her laundry bag.

“Whyyyyy.” she groaned softly into her pillow before the coughing started up again, forcing her to roll back onto her side, wishing she’d thought to pick up a box after her doctor’s appointment. Still coughing, she fumbled for her phone in the covers and squinted at the screen. Alex had texted her about an hour ago to be outraged about the Unites States’s military spending. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have asked Alex for the favor at all – she loved him dearly, but he could be a bit difficult to reach – but Eliza had spent three nights hacking up her lungs instead of sleeping and her mind was too foggy to pick someone else.

  
Alexander Hamilton was, in theory, outlining his paper in the library. In reality, he was glaring at the asshole who had decided to take a phone call in the silent study area, alternating between trying to telepathically communicate the meanings of both the words “silent” and “study” and trying to set his head on fire through sheer force of will. In spite of his best efforts, his victim remained unperturbed. Alex was halfway out of his chair when his phone buzzed and, simultaneously, the asshole apparently decided to take his discussion of the disadvantages of eating cheetos while high outside. Alex sank back into his chair and pulled his phone out of his coat pocket.

FROM BURR (SIR)  
4:56 PM  
Do you remember when GWash said the paper was due? I dropped my planner in a puddle.

Alex resisted the urge to snort only because he understood the sanctity of the silent study area and texted back.

TO BURR (SIR)  
4:57 PM  
not this friday, but next friday by midnight  
also  
i am sorry for your loss  
i know how much that planner meant to you

He scrolled down a little farther and saw that Eliza had texted him too.

FROM ELIZA  
2:23 PM  
Hey, could you pick up a box of tissues for me after you get out of class?  
And maybe some Nyquil?

Alex froze, dread seeping into his stomach. His phone buzzed again – Burr – and he tapped out a quick reply to Eliza before saving his outline and shoving the computer into his bag.

“Shit.” He whispered to no one in particular. “Shit.”

 

Eliza woke up from her impromptu nap to cough and discovered, to her disgust, snot all over her face. Unwilling to open her eyes, she groped blindly in the covers for the tissue box before her brain caught up with her. She sighed heavily, not trusting her lungs to allow her to do any more without coughing. Her phone buzzed by her ear and she grudgingly opened her eyes and peered at her phone in the darkness.

Well.

Eliza didn’t know what she had expected when she asked Alex to get her a box of tissues, but it certainly wasn’t this. Alex had left her three missed calls, two voicemails, and an overwhelming amount of texts.

FROM ALEX  
4:58 PM  
shit shit i'm so sorry i just saw this  
yes i'll get them right now  
are you sick?  
5:06 PM  
eliza?  
are you ok?  
5:17 PM  
ok, i'm at cvs now  
do you have any tissue preferences?  
5:19 PM  
eliza?  
5:20 PM  
sweetheart?  
5:23 PM  
lizard?  
5:28 PM  
ok, i’m just gonna get you normal tissues i hope that’s ok  
if you want a different kind, i’ll come back later for them  
5:34 PM  
ok i’m on my way to you  
i’ll be there in like half an hour, tops  
i love you  
5:52 PM  
i’m back on campus

Eliza smiled and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. She started to write back “I’m sorry, I fell asleep” but a sharp knock on the door interrupted her.

“Eliza?” Alex asked from the other side of the door, voice uncharacteristically uncertain. “Are you there?”

Eliza stumbled through the dark room and opened the door, squinting in the light from the hallway. Her eyes didn’t have time to adjust because Alex immediately wrapped his arms around her and walked them back into her room as he pressed kisses into her greasy hair.

“Hey,” Eliza croaked as she carefully held her snot-covered sleeve out of the way. Alex released her so that she could shut the door behind them and turn on a light.

“I got you your tissues and Nyquil.” He said, offering her the CVS bag. “If they’re not the right kind, I can – ”

She took the bag from him, pulled out the box of tissues, and let the bag drop to the floor. “Thank you. How much do I owe you?”

Alex shook his head and started talking again before she could argue, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I’m sorry I didn’t get them earlier, I was in class and then I didn’t check my phone after I left and I really should get better about that but I didn’t think to and I’m so sorry and – ”

“Alexander.” Eliza rasped. This was, apparently, too much effort for her lungs and a series of hacking coughs ripped through her chest. Alex caught her by the arm and led her to sit in her chair.

“How are you feeling?” he asked when her coughing had subsided, eyes bright with concern. She laughed weakly.

“Awful. I just woke up.” She tried to smile but her face settled into a grimace instead. With the light on and all of Alex’s attention focused on her, Eliza became hyperaware of how disgusting she must be. Her entire room was covered in used tissues. She’d been wearing the same pajamas for the past three days. She hadn’t showered in even longer. “I’m sorry.” She said. “I’m super gross right now.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Alex said and, much to her embarrassment, Eliza’s eyes began to water.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, angrily wiping at her eyes, “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

Alex laid a hand on her face. “Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, it’s okay.”

She nodded helplessly and sniffled a little bit. Alex briefly took his attention away from her so that he could open the tissue box that she held in her lap. Eliza took one, gratefully, and blew her nose, and then took another so that she could wipe the snot off of her sleeve.

“Hey,” he brushed warm fingers against her temple, “do you want to take a shower while I do your laundry and stuff for you?”

Eliza considered this for a moment, then nodded again.

  
Alex had just started putting clean sheets on Eliza’s bed when her phone, lying on the desk, started to buzz. Despite his curiosity, he kept fighting with the corner sheet. The buzzing stopped as soon as he got the corner sheet on and didn’t start again until he’d finished changing the rest of the sheets. In spite of his stern reminders to himself that who called Eliza was none of his business, Alex picked up the phone so that he could read the name of the caller. He smiled, put the phone back down on the desk, and searched for his coat.

  
“Maybe he already got dinner.” Lafayette said optimistically, dragging Jack by the arm. Jack glared at his friend. Lafayette shrugged. “It _could_ happen.”

Jack snorted, but allowed Lafayette to keep pulling him towards the dining hall. “Do you think I should try calling Eliza again?”

Hercules groaned. “C’mon, man, the dining hall is only open for, like, another hour. If A-Ham wants to, like, drop off the face of the earth without telling anyone, that’s cool, but we can’t just miss dinner for it.”

Jack restrained himself from pointing out that the dining hall wouldn’t close until eight and it wasn’t even seven yet or that, technically, Herc was Alex’s RA and maybe should be a little bit more concerned that they had been unable to find him anywhere in the library, his room, or the café. He followed his friends into the dining hall obediently instead.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket after swiping in despite Hercules’s request that he put that shit away and saw a text.

FROM ALEX  
6:39 PM  
hey, what’s going on?  
eliza’s in the shower right now

Distantly aware that he was being rude, Jack stopped short so that he could respond while Lafayette groaned and pushed him forward.

TO ALEX  
6:41 PM  
where r u???  
ive been looking everywhere  
/do u wanna get dinner rn  
bc im getting dinner rn

Jack had only just grabbed a tray when Alex’s response came in.

FROM ALEX  
6:42 PM  
oh, shit, sorry  
eliza’s really sick  
i'm in her room  
actually, could you get us something?  
i don’t think either of us are making it down there tonight

“Is that him?” Lafayette asked, trying to read over Jack’s shoulder.

“Yeah.” Jack said while he asked Alex what they wanted. “He’s with Eliza.”

“What, and he didn’t invite you to join in? How rude.” Lafayette pushed Jack down along the line. After a thoughtful pause, they added, “Although I suppose it’s ruder for him to be texting you during, isn’t it?”

Hercules snickered and Jack felt his face heat up.

“It’s not like that.” Jack muttered uselessly, checking his phone to see Alex’s requests. “Eliza’s really sick, apparently.”

Hercules snorted and then stopped short. “Wait, like, for real?”

“Apparently.” Jack put a couple of lemons and oranges on his plate and a few more directly into his backpack, trying to push away the twinge of guilt in his stomach. He could see Hercules and Lafayette exchanging glances out of the corner of his eye.

Hercules cleared his throat. “If you wanna run, man, that’s totally fine.”

“Thanks.” John said, emptying the contents of his tray into his backpack.

“Tell her to feel better!” Lafayette called after him as he left. Jack nodded in thanks.

  
Eliza found Alex sitting on her bed, laptop open, when she returned to her room.

“Oh good,” he said, smiling over the top of the screen, “I was starting to worry that you’d drowned.”

“No drowning,” she croaked, wrapping the towel around herself more securely, “nearly fainted though.”

Alex pushed his laptop to the side and slid off of the bed, frowning. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down? I can get your pajamas out for you if you want.”

She waved him away. “I’m just a little lightheaded. I’ll be fine.”

He worried his lip between his teeth for a moment. “If you’re sure.”

Eliza nodded and Alex retreated back to her bed and his laptop as she turned to get dressed.

“Oh,” he said, eyes pointedly fixed on his computer screen (which was _adorable_ – it wasn’t like there was anything he hadn’t seen before), “Jack’s coming soon. He’s bringing us dinner.”

“Will there be bagels?” she asked, pulling a t-shirt over her head.

“And cream cheese.” Alex kept typing away as she sat down next to him on her bed.

“Jack’s the best.” Eliza laid her head on his shoulder. “What are you working on?”

Alex sighed. “I’m trying to outline this paper for Washington’s class, but I keep getting distracted.” He considered that for a moment and then shook his head. “Well, not distracted, exactly, but I keep having other things to do and, you know, I keep knowing that I’m going to have to stop and do something else soon. Like,” he glanced at the clock, “in twenty minutes or so, I’m going to have to go downstairs and take your laundry out of the washing machine and put it in the dryer.”

Eliza blinked at him slowly. “I’m sorry.”

Alex shut his computer and kissed her on the nose. “I don’t mind.”

Eliza scrunched up her nose and then, before she had time to cover her nose or warn her boyfriend or do anything, she sneezed into his face.

There was a moment of stillness as Eliza’s widening eyes tried to convey what had just happened to her horrified brain.

“OhmygodI’msosorryI’msosorry – ” Eliza’s lungs, which had been mercifully well-behaved since her shower, seized up and she doubled over, coughing.

“It’s okay.” Alex stroked her back with one hand and reached for the tissue box with the other. “I mean, I’m pretty sure you got some in my mouth, but it’s okay.”

When someone knocked on the door, Eliza, who had shifted to lie on her side, was still too busy coughing to answer and Alex, she assumed, was wiping her snot off of his face. She couldn’t actually see what he was doing and the world was starting to go black around the edges.

“Come in!” Alex called. “The door’s unlocked.”

Jack must have, because when the horrible coughing finally ceased and the black spots cleared away from her vision, he was kneeling in front of her, freckled face lined with worry.

“Hey,” she whispered, resisting the instinct gulp mouthfuls of air now that she could finally get them.

“Hey,” Jack tried to smile, but he seemed to be wound too tight to pull a convincing one off, “how’re you feeling?”

Eliza grimaced and pushed herself upright. “Sick.”

“Yeah.” He patted her shoulder, mouth twisting, and stood so he could shrug off his backpack. “I heard.”

Alex helped Jack pull the food he’d technically stolen (although why students couldn’t take food they paid thousands of dollars a year for out of the dining hall was really beyond Eliza) out of his bag and onto her desk in spite of her protests that they were all probably going to end up sitting on the floor anyway since there was only one chair and she didn’t want to get crumbs on her clean sheets.

She was wrong; only Jack joined her on the floor. Alex sat in her chair and handed food down to them. To everyone’s disappointment, Jack had forgotten to steal knives along with the cream cheese, so they were forced to either eat their bagels plain or use their fingers to spread it instead.

Eliza was leaning back against the bed frame behind her, sucking the excess cream cheese off of her fingers when an alarm went off on Alex’s phone. He jumped up, accidentally jolting Jack, who had been resting his head against Alex’s leg.

“I’m going to go put your laundry in the dryer.” Alex told her, turning off the alarm with one hand and patting Jack’s head in a silent apology with the other.

Eliza shook her head. “Most of my stuff can’t go in the dryer. It has to be – you have to hang it up.”

“What?” Alex, already at the door, looked startled. “Wait, what can’t go in the dryer?”

Eliza considered the possibility of listing them then, out loud, with her scratchy throat, and waved him away. “I’ll text you.”

“Okay!” Alex disappeared down the hall. Eliza stretched a hand uselessly up towards where her phone lay on the desk and slumped when it refused to meet her halfway. Jack laughed and got it for her.

“Hey,” he asked, hesitating next to her kettle, “do you want tea?”

Eliza nodded, busy texting their boyfriend the list of things that could not go in the dryer. “Please.”

By the time she finished, Jack had already filled the kettle with water, set it to boil, and sat back down on the floor with her.

“So,” he said, eyes fixed on the patch of comforter behind her right ear, “how long have you feeling this bad?”

Eliza squinted, trying to focus. “Since…Monday?”

“Eliza,” Jack met her eyes, horrified, and she belatedly remembered that they’d gotten coffee together that afternoon, “why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“Monday evening.” She amended. “I got a migraine on Monday evening.” Jack looked somewhat mollified, so she pressed on. “And then I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t stop coughing and then on Tuesday, everything was worse and, well, you know.” She shrugged. “Here we are.”

He raised his thumb to his lips and started to chew on the nail. Eliza wanted nothing more than to take his hand and pull it away, but something stopped her. “Have you been to the doctor’s?”

The kettle _dinged_ behind him and Jack rose to his feet. “I forgot to ask. What kind of tea do you want?”

She swallowed and replied. “The throat kind.”

“The what?” Jack asked as he dug through the box she kept her tea bags in. “Oh, I see. Is this what you mean?” he held up a bag of honey lemon tea. She nodded.

He added a spoonful of honey and a squeeze of lemon into her mug and handed it to her, sitting across from her again.

“I forget if you told me,” Jack said, voice artificially light, “if you went to the doctor’s.”

Eliza inhaled as deeply as she thought she could risk. “I went this morning.” She took another deep breath. “I should be fine in a week or so. It’s just a cold, Jack.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“That’s what I said. But the doctor said it was just a bad cold.”

“Okay.” Jack didn’t look comforted by that. He returned to staring at the spot by her ear and heavy silence settled between them. Finally, Jack shifted and spoke. “Eliza?”

She took a sip of her tea and winced – still too hot to drink. “Yeah?”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone that you were sick?”

She blew on her tea and frowned. “I told people.”

“Yeah?” Jack asked, exasperated. “Like who?”

“I told Angelica.” She paused for a moment and contemplated taking another sip of her tea. “I guess I didn’t tell anyone else. I don’t usually need to.”

Jack scooted across the floor until he could rest his hands and chin on her knees. “Eliza?”

“Yeah?” She took another sip. It was still too hot.

“Where is Angelica right now?”

Eliza started to understand where he was going with this. “…London?”

He nodded gravely, chin knocking into her knees. “She’s in London. And while I’m sure half the city knows you’re sick now, I don’t think anyone else on campus did.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, the contents of her mug were too interesting to tear her eyes away from. “Sorry.”

Jack sighed, making the string attached to her tea bag flutter. “It’s alright. I just – If I’d known, I would have – ”

 _Would have what?_ Eliza wondered silently. _Called the doctor’s office and pretended to be me so that I didn’t have to make the appointment myself, like Angelica did? Your voice is too low for that._

He looked so helpless, though, Eliza had to carefully remind herself that she was sick and Jack didn’t want to be sick and she shouldn’t lean over and kiss his frown away.

“I just – ” he started and then stopped. “I know that out of the three of us, you’re, well, you’re the most like a real grown up, but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t come to us when you need to.”

“It’s not that I didn’t feel like I could.” To her irritation, her eyes started welling up for the second time that day. “I just didn’t think of it, that’s all.”

“Hey,” Jack said softly as he plucked the mug of tea out of her hands and placed it on the linoleum floor beside them, “hey, it’s okay.” He leaned up and wrapped his arms around her awkwardly. It took Eliza a moment to realize what he was doing and another to realize that her legs were in the way. She moved them and settled into the hug, burying her face into Jack’s chest while he stroked her back and murmured. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I just get worried, it’s okay.”

  
Jack left Eliza’s room at ten after making sure that she drank her tea and a glass of water, took her medicine, and that she was at least on her bed, covered by a blanket, even if she refused to actually go to bed so early. He had also attempted to convince Alex that standing vigil over a sleeping Eliza (who, despite her protests, had passed out just after nine thirty) was unnecessary.

“Come on,” he’d urged, “you know she’s not going to die in the night, right?”

A muscle in Alex’s jaw had twitched, barely visible in the dim glow of the fairy lights strung up around Eliza’s window, and he’d snapped. “I _know_ that.”

Something in his tone made Jack back off and he’d let it go. It had seemed like the right decision at the time, but now, stepping out into the icy February air, he began to doubt himself. He’d been so certain in there that Alex wouldn’t budge, that pushing would only make an unfortunate situation worse, but would it have, really? Was it really such a good idea to leave him there when he seemed so likely to smother Eliza with affection?

Or maybe, Jack considered, walking briskly to his dorm, Alex wasn’t being overzealous at all. Maybe Alex was behaving like a normal person with a sick girlfriend and he was being neglectful. Maybe that’s why Alex had seemed so irritated with him. They had both managed to abandon her for days when she needed them and while Alex seemed to be trying to make up for it, all Jack had done was bring her to tears and leave again.

Jack dropped his I.D. three times while trying to swipe in to the building and gritted his teeth on his successful fourth try. God, why was he so stupid and awful and no wonder his father had been so surprised to hear that he had a girlfriend – his father knew that he was too awful for anyone to put up with for long. When he got to his door, he tried the handle and found it locked. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought and thumped his head against the door. He should have known that his door was locked, his door was always locked, how could he have forgotten that?

Someone coughed behind him. Jack ignored them in favor of hitting his head against the door. If I was a normal person, he thought bitterly, I would just have taken my damn keys out of my pocket and unlocked the door, but I’m stupid. He slammed his head into the door again, harder this time.

“Um, okay.” Hercules’s voice came from somewhere behind Jack’s left ear. “Jack. What are you doing?”

“Hitting my head against the door.” Jack left the _isn’t it fucking obvious?_ unsaid and demonstrated.

“Okay.” Hercules said, voice even. “Why are you hitting your head against the door?”

“Because I’m stupid.”

Hercules appeared and leaned on the wall beside him, arms crossed. “Do you want to talk?”

“Why?”

“Well,” Hercules said, “giving yourself a concussion won’t make you smarter.”

“What,” Jack scoffed and turned to look at him, “and talking to you will?”

Hercules didn’t rise to the bait, only waited until Jack deflated.

“Fine.” Jack mumbled. “We can go talk.”

Hercules snorted and shook his head as he led the way back to his room. “Man, you’d think that I was forcing you to clean up vomit or some shit.”

Jack shrugged but didn’t say anything as he followed Hercules into his room and flopped facedown onto the bright aqua carpet.

Hercules’s bed creaked as he climbed onto it. “So,” he began and then paused, probably searching for an opening, “how’s Eliza?”

“Fine.” Jack sighed, rolled over onto his back and belatedly remembered that he still had his backpack on. He wriggled out of it and stared up at the ceiling. “I mean, not really, she’s definitely got the worst ‘cold’ I’ve ever seen and she’s super sick.” He pulled his gloves off of his hands. “I just…thought she was fine and she wasn’t and I didn’t know.”

“Uh huh.” Herc said. “That’s gotta be a little weird.”

“Apparently it came on really suddenly and she didn’t tell me and when I asked why she said she just didn’t think of it and she’d already told Angelica, so she forgot to tell me and – ” Jack took a deep breath and kept going “ – and what kind of boyfriend am I that she thought that her sister, who is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, would be more helpful than me?”

“Well,” Hercules had crossed his legs like a kindergartener waiting for story time (like a _good_ kindergartener who didn’t fucking _lie down_ during story time, Jack reflected gloomily, not like him) and was propping up his chin by his fist, “the Schuyler sisters are very close. That doesn’t mean that you’re a bad boyfriend.”

Jack unzipped his jacket and tried (without success) to take it off without having to sit up. “I think you’re missing the part where Angelica literally lives an ocean away and I am on the same campus as her.”

Hercules hummed and Jack could not help but take it as confirmation.

“Have you tried talking to her about it?” Hercules asked at last.

“Yeah.” Jack admitted defeat and sat up so that he could yank his jacket off. “She started crying.” He fell back down onto the carpet and winced at the impact. “I made her _cry_ and then she started coughing again and she’s so sick, Herc. Why am I making her worry about my stupid feelings? Why am I so selfish?” He lifted his head and dropped it into the carpet again. “God, no wonder she didn’t tell me.”

“First of all,” Hercules said, “what have I told you about giving yourself a concussion?”

“Nothing, technically.” Jack muttered.

Eyes fixed on the ceiling light, Jack couldn’t see Hercules’s raised eyebrow. He didn’t need to. “What was that?”

Jack inhaled deeply through his nose and then pushed the air back out with as much resentment as he could manage. “Won’t make me smarter.”

“And what else?”

Jack knit his brows together, trying to remember. “I don’t know.”

Hercules huffed, so full of fond exasperation that, for a moment, Jack felt ashamed for sulking. “Come on, man, you know this one.”

Jack shook his head vigorously.

“No? Take a guess then.”

“Might break the door or something?” Jack ventured.

“Close, but not quite.”

Jack squinted up at the light. “It’s loud?”

“No, you know we’ve talked about this.”

Jack turned his head to scowl at the other boy. “I shouldn’t do it because I might hurt myself?”

“That’s the one!” Hercules grinned. “Now come up here.”

“Why?” Jack turned his gaze back to the ceiling light.

“You’ve lost your floor privileges.” He patted the spot on the bed next to him. “Come on, up.”

Jack groaned but complied, settling in against the footboard, two feet away from the nearest wall. “Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.” Hercules turned to face him and threaded his fingers together. “But about what you were saying before – ” he brought his joined fingers up to his lips “ – I don’t think you’re selfish for bringing up something that was bothering you, even if Eliza was sick and overtired and she cried.”

Jack felt uneasy, leaning against the footboard without any place to rest his head. He could, theoretically, have gone for the wall to his side, but he didn’t trust that Herc wouldn’t count that as “trying to give himself a concussion” and he was not particularly interested in losing any more privileges. He rearranged himself instead, curling into a ball, careful to keep his shoes off of the bed, and burying his face into the comforter. Hercules patted his head.

“But, hey, man,” Herc said, “I’m not Eliza and I’m not A-Ham and if you’re really worried that you might’ve fucked up, it might be a good idea to have a conversation about it when Eliza isn’t feeling so shitty.”

  
Eliza woke to find her head pillowed on Alex’s thigh. On his other thigh, he was balancing his computer, catching it as it slid off every so often. She nuzzled into his thigh, eyes half-shut with sleep still, and rasped, “Hey.”

Alex’s fingers stilled and he smiled at her, impossibly soft and adoring. “Hey.”

Eliza sighed, contented.

“Is the light bothering you? I can be done for the night now. We should probably go to bed. It’s pretty late.” He saved his work and closed the computer over Eliza’s mumbled protests that it was alright, really. “Actually,” he got up to put his computer on her desk, leaving her pillowless, “while we’re up, we should probably get some fluids in you. I’m going to go get you a glass of water.” He returned to the bed and placed a kiss on her temple. “I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”

She nodded, but he was already gone. When Alex returned, he flipped the lights on and she moaned, covering her eyes and then her mouth as she began to cough.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he said, putting her glass of water down on the table by her bed, “is that too bright, sweetheart?”

Eliza nodded and waited while Alex rushed about the room, eyes squeezed shut until he said. “Okay, is that better?”

Eliza carefully cracked open one eye, then the other as her coughs subsided. Alex’s worried face, shadowy but visible in the glow of the fairy lights, relaxed.

“All right,” Alex gently pulled her upright, “now just have a little water, and then we can go to bed.”

Bed sounded lovely, so Eliza drank half the glass before putting it down. Alex looked ready to try to coax her into drinking more, but she shook her head.

“It hurts to swallow.” She explained and Alex’s mouth twisted. He pulled the covers back for her and she climbed in between them gratefully, while Alex took off his jeans and unplugged the fairy lights, plunging the room into darkness. A moment later, he was at her side, poking her in the ribs.

“Scoot.” He whispered and she rolled over onto her side. Alex wrapped himself around her and pulled the covers over the two of them as Eliza drifted back off to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

“Are you really texting right now?” Lafayette asked, half-laughing as Jack clung to the railing with one gloved hand and typed with the other.

“Shut up.” Jack said without venom and lurched as he missed a stair. He shoved his phone into his coat pocket. “It’s important.”

Lafayette smirked. “I’m sure it is.”

Jack rolled his eyes, but Lafayette returned to their story about the time they embarrassed themselves at a school dance, which lasted them through the rest of the walk to the dining hall and would have gone on much longer if Jack had let them. He listened with half an ear, hand wrapped tightly around the phone in his pocket.

He shouldn’t have bothered; no one responded until after he had collected his food and sat down.

FROM ALEX  
9:11 AM  
sorry, just woke up  
can you get me toast? and maybe an apple?  
i dunno what eliza wants  
i don’t want to wake her up

Jack frowned and shoveled a forkful of cold scrambled eggs into his mouth.

TO ALEX  
9:12 AM  
do u think shed want bagels?  
i can get more bagels

“Are you listening?” Lafayette demanded, interrupting their story.

“Uh huh.” Jack poked at his phone screen as though it would make Alex text back faster. “You know you’ve told me this story before, right?”

Lafayette huffed and crossed their arms. “Have not. Adrienne told me this one yesterday.”

“Oh.” Jack tore his eyes away from his phone. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little distracted.”

Right on cue, his phone buzzed.

FROM ALEX  
9:14 AM  
maybe? wouldn't hurt, i guess  
don’t toast them though  
she woke up a couple of times in the night and told me that it hurt to swallow

“A little?” Lafayette snorted as Jack responded to ask what Alex thought would be least painful.

“I mean,” Jack put his phone down on the table, “in my defense, you’ve told me the story of that time Antoinette laughed at you, like, ten times, so you can’t really blame me for not totally listening.”

“Have not.” Lafayette flicked a blueberry at him, smiling. Jack opened his mouth, trying to catch it, but Lafayette had aimed too low and the blueberry bounced off of his chest and onto the floor.

“Try that again.” Jack said. “I want to see if I can catch it.”

Lafayette shook their head, amused, but indulged him. It took four tries to get it right and when Jack finally bit down on the sweet, sweet taste of victory he discovered that they were more than a little mushy. He grabbed his napkin and spat it out. “That’s _disgusting_.”

Lafayette shrugged, unsympathetic. “Why do you think I was throwing them at you?”

Jack glared, washing away the taste with orange juice. “You could have warned me.”

“You didn’t ask. Besides,” their tone turned teasing, “if you’d been _listening_ to me, you would have known how disgusting they were.”

“Shut up, you didn’t say anything about the blueberries.” He kicked them under the table playfully and his phone buzzed again.

FROM ALEX  
9:20 AM  
i dunno  
something cold and not solid, probably  
like a milkshake or a smoothie  
or the eggs, depending on how congealed they are today

“How would you know?” Lafayette asked as Jack glanced at his scrambled eggs, then got several new napkins and started to scoop them off of his plate and onto the napkins. “You’re practically glued to your phone.”

Jack winced, but kept typing. “Sorry.”

TO ALEX  
9:21 AM  
ill get her eggs  
we can talk abt smoothies/milkshakes when she gets up  
do u want me to drop off the eggs + get u a change of clothes/ur stuff 4 class?

He clicked off his phone screen and straightened up so he could look Lafayette in the eye. “I’m just trying to, like, coordinate with Alex and Eliza so they don’t starve.”

Lafayette blinked and shook themselves. “Oh. Right. She’s sick. You told me that.”

“Yeah.” He resumed wrapping the scrambled eggs in napkins.

Lafayette pursed their lips. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” Jack scanned the room for watchful dining hall employees with the kind of subtlety that Hercules declared rendered him unfit for any kind of career in intelligence before shoving the napkin-covered eggs into his backpack.

Lafayette took a bite of toast and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing and asking, “How sick is she?”

Jack cocked his head to the side.

“I only ask,” Lafayette added, “because back in September, I came down with a slight cold – ”

“I don’t remember that.” He interrupted before he could stop himself.

“That’s how slight it was.” Lafayette told him. “It lasted two days, at most. But I came down with a slight cold and Alex – ” they paused, searching for the right phrase “ – Alex behaved as though it was an emergency.” They shook their head. “I love Alexander dearly, but I do not think I can get an accurate sense of how badly anyone is feeling from him alone.”

Now that Lafayette mentioned it, Jack thought it sounded vaguely familiar. There had been a brief time towards the beginning of the year when Alex paid more attention to Lafayette than anyone else, but it ended as suddenly as it began and Jack had pushed the memory of it – and all of the insecurities it had brought up – to the back of his mind. Now, he felt like a bit of  an asshole.

“Jack?” Lafayette prompted, expectant.

“Yeah, sorry.” Jack brought himself back out of his head.

“You don’t have to be so sorry all of the time.” Lafayette gently poked him the arm with a fork.

“I know. Sorry.” Jack grinned, and then sobered. “But yeah, she’s…she’s pretty sick.”

Lafayette’s mouth twisted, about to say something, but the buzzing of Jack’s phone interrupted them. Jack’s fingers itched to check it, but he’d been practically neglecting his friend all morning.

“Go ahead.” Lafayette pushed it towards him.

Jack smiled his thanks.

FROM ALEX  
9:25 AM  
what if i just…didn’t go to class

Jack frowned, brows knitting together.

TO ALEX  
9:26 AM  
what r u talking abt???

The response was almost instantaneous.

FROM ALEX  
9:26 AM  
my class  
what if i didn’t go to it today

“What is it?” Lafayette asked. Jack rose from his chair and shoved the phone into Lafayette’s hands while he ran off to get his idiot boyfriend toast and bagels. When he returned, Lafayette was cradling their head in their hands.

“That’s not normal for him, right?” Jack asked, hiding the food in his bag.

Lafayette raised their head enough to stare at Jack. “He went to class when he had that stomach…” they flapped their hand, looking for the right word “…thing and he couldn’t stop throwing up.”

“I know that.” Jack replied. “I just…did he skip when you were sick?”

Lafayette shook their head. “He didn’t stay the night either.” They took another bite of their toast. “But that could be because we live on the same hall.”

Jack nodded as he zipped up his bag.

“Leaving so soon?” Lafayette asked.

“Yeah, sorry.” Jack pulled his backpack on. “I have to go argue with my boyfriend.”

“Have fun!” Lafayette called after him, waving his toast and spraying Jack with crumbs.

  
Eliza woke up to her boyfriends arguing in hushed tones and what felt like razor blades in her throat. She opened her mouth to say _good morning_ and grimaced when her throat got stuck on the _g_. She swallowed and regretted it the moment the sharpness in her throat intensified.

“I can take an absence.” Alex hissed from the other side of the room. “Jack, it’ll be _fine_.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Jack countered. “I just – ” His voice dropped, leaving Eliza wondering what exactly he just. She cracked her eyes open, squinting at the sunlight flooding the room. Neither of her boyfriends took any notice as she pulled herself into a sitting position. She pawed at the covers, searching for her phone. She sighed, swallowed involuntarily, and tried to speak again. This time, her throat didn’t catch on the _g_ , but she didn’t have much more success before a series of coughs ripped out of her chest, slicing the inside of her throat.  
  
Alex appeared by her side half a second later, hand resting on her back, words tumbling out almost faster than she could process them, half questions for her, half requests aimed over his shoulder at Jack. By the time she could breathe relatively easily again, there was a glass of water on her bedside table and the kettle was going.

“Good morning.” Alex pulled her pillows upright so that she could lean against them while she sat. “Do you think you can have a little bit of water for me?”

Eliza shook her head and gestured to her throat. Alex’s mouth twisted to one side, sympathetic. “I know it hurts, sweetheart. But we need to get fluids in you.”

Eliza glanced over at Jack, hoping for support, but he raised an eyebrow, expectant, and gave her a little “go on” wave. She glared and took the glass from Alex and drank until he stopped pestering her to have more, making a mental note that when she could talk without wanting to cry, she and Alex needed to talk about what “a little” meant. When she had finished the entire glass, she reached down towards the floor, where she vaguely remembered leaving her phone the night before. Alex’s gaze went from her to the floor and back again, uncomprehending. Eliza sighed inwardly and, with an amount of effort that felt unfair, rasped, “Phone.”

Realization dawned in Alex’s eyes and he retrieved it for her. Jack, busying himself with the kettle, asked over his shoulder, “Is the ‘throat kind’ okay?”

Eliza titled her head to the side, confused. Jack grinned and held up a packet of honey lemon tea. She rolled her eyes and nodded.

“Did I miss something?” Alex’s eyes flickered between the two of them.

“Don’t worry about it.” Jack added extra honey and lemon to her tea and brought it to her bedside table. “Eliza, tell your boyfriend that he needs to put on the change of clothes I so kindly brought him and get ready for class.”

Alex scowled at Jack. “Eliza, tell your boyfriend that I can _totally_ take an absence, it’ll be _fine_.”

Eliza pursed her lips and considered it for a moment, then opened up a note on her phone, typed something in, and handed it to Alex. His scowl deepened. “Fine.” He opened Jack’s bag and pulled out a shirt and something wrapped in a napkin. “Wait, are you hungry? There’s food if you’re hungry.”

He retrieved more napkin-wrapped items from the bag and placed them on the desk. Eliza shook her head, wrote a new message, and handed the phone to Jack, who laughed.

“Eliza says,” Jack came to sit by her on the bed, “that that doesn’t look like getting dressed to her.”

“No she doesn’t.” Alex returned to look at the phone himself. He smirked at Eliza. “You just want to see me naked.”

Eliza raised an eyebrow, expectant, and gave him a little “go on” wave. His smirk morphed into grin.

“I love you.” He returned the phone to her and kissed her.

“That also does not look like getting dressed.” Jack remarked as Eliza pushed Alex away. “It looks like a good way to get laryngitis.”

Alex shook his head and started to change. “You’re just jealous.”

“Of what?” Jack scooted backwards on the bed so he could lean against the window. “Your impending laryngitis?”

“No,” Alex stopped with his shirt half-off, “of my – ”

Eliza handed her phone to Jack.

“Eliza says ‘Get. Changed.’”

Alex sighed and finally did what he was told.

“Happy now?” He asked when he was done. Eliza and Jack nodded as one. Alex seemed to be formulating a response when his eye caught on the napkin-wrapped food. “But really, though, are you hungry? Jack got you a bagel and cream cheese and scrambled eggs, but the bagel might be too hard to swallow. The cream cheese might be okay, though, and the eggs are so runny they might qualify as a liquid…”

He trailed off when he saw Eliza’s grimace. “Or, I mean, we could just throw them out too. Whatever works, really. One of us could get you a milkshake too, if you wanted. I’m pretty sure they sell them at the café.”

Eliza wrote “I’m not really that hungry right now, thanks. Do you want the bagel?”

Alex frowned. “Are you sure?”

She nodded and wrote “Do you want the bagel?” again, just in case he hadn’t seen it the first time.

“No, no, that’s okay, I already ate.” He attempted something like a smile. “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

Eliza glanced at Jack and raised an eyebrow.

“He did, actually, have breakfast.” Jack told her. She relaxed.

“Wait, are you actually going to believe him over me?” Alex pouted, flopping down into her rolling chair and pushing himself back and forth. “I’m not _that_ bad at taking care of myself.”

Eliza turned her raised eyebrow onto him. Alex held up for a record thirty seconds before he deflated.

“Can you do the eyebrow thing until he goes to class?” Jack asked.

Eliza nodded, gaze still fixed on the boy in the chair.

“Fine.” Alex grumbled, getting to his feet. “I’ll go, I’ll go, even if we never do anything anyway and statistics isn’t really that hard and it would be a better use of everyone’s time if I just stayed here…”

Eliza and Jack shared a fond eye roll as Alex wrapped himself up to go outside.

  
Alex clicked his pen, fist tensing with the effort of resisting the urge to text either of his partners, and stared at the space above the professor’s ear. His phone, hidden in his jean pocket, seemed to weigh more than usual and he couldn’t seem to be any less aware of it pressing against his leg. He had no hope of distracting himself with the material either; he could have sworn that they had covered this last week. Alex’s self-control, never stellar to begin with, normally would have snapped under the strain of both his anxiety and the mind-numbing class five minutes in, but he had held out for nearly half an hour.

He owed his restraint to a tactical error that placed him next to a student that he had affectionately nicknamed “Death Glare.” Alex liked to think that he and Death Glare had formed a kind of bond over the first few weeks of the course, although he would readily admit that she probably disagreed. As far as he could tell, Death Glare liked two things and two things only: sitting in the back of the room, next to the door, and knitting. He was happy that she could do both of those things here, since she seemed to reserve a particular distaste for everything else about the class, especially the professor, the material, and the other students who decided that the best use of three hours on a Friday was doing stuff on their phones instead of pretending to pay attention.

A sharp elbow to the side jerked him from his thoughts. Death Glare met his eyes, glanced down at his desk, and then back up at him. Alex followed her eyes down to a sheet of notebook paper that read “STOP CLICKING YOUR FUCKING PEN.”

Alex winced – he hadn’t realized how constant the sound must be – and scribbled “Would you prefer I texted?” and pushed the piece of paper back towards her.

Death Glare responded immediately. “I would literally prefer that you started screaming and smashing your head into the wall over and over again if it was that or that FUCKING CLICKING.”

Alex considered that for a moment and then wrote another message. “Might get out of class that way.”

He didn’t expect any sort of response, but Death Glare’s lips twitched (on anyone else, he would have called it a smile) and she wrote “Wouldn’t count on it. Not sure he’d notice if you actually set yourself on fire.” before she picked up her knitting needles again and resumed her impression of a student who could, possibly, be listening.

Alex finally pulled his phone out of his pocket. True to her word, Death Glare pretended that there was nothing going on next to her.

TO ELIZA  
11:36 AM  
did you go to stats yesterday or were you not feeling well enough?  
if not, i can totally get you the notes

FROM ELIZA  
11:38 AM  
Alex, we’re still not in the same statistics class  
That’s really sweet of you though!  
Thanks for the offer!

Alex cracked his neck. At this point, he was fairly certain that Professor Lee was giving the exact same lecture, word for word, that he’d given last week.

TO ELIZA  
11:39 AM  
i would bet you at least five dollars that it is pretty much the same class  
lee is definitely teaching one class and claiming it’s two  
because he’s scamming the school  
alternately,  
he’s just going to give my class the same lecture every single week

FROM ELIZA  
11:42 AM  
Yes, dear  
Whatever you say, dear

TO ELIZA  
11:43 AM  
you know it’s true

FROM ELIZA  
11:46 AM  
I know that you really, really hate Professor Lee  
That is what I know to be true  
I know that I am tired  
That is also true

Alex smiled fondly down at his phone.

TO ELIZA  
11:47 AM  
ok, take a nap  
i'll go bother jack instead  
i love you

FROM ELIZA  
11:48 AM  
Love you too  
Tell him that I want the red kind

Alex, partway through opening a new message to Jack, frowned, caught off guard.

TO ELIZA  
11:49 AM  
what?

FROM ELIZA  
11:50 AM  
Of throat lozenges  
I want the red kind of throat lozenges

Alex inhaled through his nose, trying to fight off the panic settling in.

TO ELIZA  
11:51 AM  
wait, where is he?  
11:54 AM  
did he leave you alone?  
11:58 AM  
eliza, are you alone?  
12:01 PM  
eliza?  
12:06 PM  
eliza?

  
Jack’s phone started to ring the second after he placed the order for Eliza’s milkshake. He smiled apologetically at the cashier, who had already moved on to the next customer, and answered.

“Shouldn’t you be in class right now?” He asked.

“Where are you?” Alex shot back, breathless.

“I’m getting a milkshake for Eliza?” Jack stretched the answer out into a question. “Where are you?”

“You left her alone.” Alex’s words tripped over each other in their race to get out of his mouth. “Why did you leave her alone?”

“She asked me to run some errands for her. Jesus, Alex, it’s not like I _abandoned_ her or anything.” The person making the milkshake caught Jack’s eye. “Hold on.” He told Alex, and tilted the phone away from his mouth. “Sorry.”

The person shook their head as if to say that it was fine (Jack hoped he hadn’t been keeping them long) and asked if he would like whipped cream with his milkshake.

“Yes please.” Jack didn’t know if Eliza wanted whipped cream, but if she didn’t, he would gladly eat it for her. He turned his attention back to his boyfriend. “Alex, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry.” Alex’s breath hitched. “I just – she’s not answering her phone and she’s by herself and what if something’s happened and – ”

“Okay,” Jack took the milkshake and mouthed a thanks to the person who made it, “take a deep breath. Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah, but – ”

Jack did not give him time to complete that thought. “Okay, but before we do anything else, we’re going to breathe, okay?”

“I _am_ breathing.” Alex grumbled, impatience coloring his words.

“We’re going to take a deep breath, then.” Jack amended, bracing himself against a cold gust as he left the building. “Okay?”

There was a pause on the other end.

“Okay.” Alex said. “I did it. Now what?”

Jack rolled his eyes, feeling absurdly fond. “You know that Eliza probably just fell asleep, right? Sick people do that.”

Alex sighed on the other end. “Yeah, I guess. But what if – ”

Jack cut him off before he could finish. “And I am going to be back with her in five minutes or so, okay?”

“Okay.” Alex sounded marginally calmer and infinitely more resentful.

“So why don’t you go back to class and I’ll text you when I get in?” Jack said. “And if something changes dramatically, I’ll text you.”

“Okay.” Alex said. “Are you going to make me go back to class now?”

Jack quashed the laugh bubbling up within him, trying for firmness instead. “Yes.”

Alex groaned. “Fine.”

“Love you.” Jack approached Eliza’s dorm and wondered how he could hold the phone, a milkshake, and get his I.D. out at the same time.

“Love you too.” Alex hung up.

  
It seemed like Eliza had just slipped out of full consciousness and into that hazy half-awake state again when a warm hand came to rest on her forehead.

“I got you a milkshake.” Alex’s voice drifted down from somewhere above. She opened her eyes to confirm and, sure enough, his blurry face hovered over her. Her eyelids were too heavy to hold open for long though, so she let them close.

“I was going to get you your laundry too, but not everything had dried yet.” The bed sunk beneath Alex’s weight. “So I only brought up half.”

It occurred to Eliza that Alex was not supposed to be there. He ought to have been somewhere else, but she couldn’t remember where or why. Her brow furrowed in concentration.

Alex tried to smooth her brow with his fingertips. “I missed you in statistics.”

Right, that’s where he was supposed to be. Why wasn’t he there?

Alex’s weight shifted to the other side of the bed and he lay down between her and the wall. “It was a waste of time. As usual. Lee can’t even be bothered to remember what he taught us last week.”

Eliza would have protested that even if it was a waste of time, (and if Alex’s class was anything like hers, she would be hard-pressed to disagree) passing it so that he never had to take it again was probably important, if her throat hadn’t hurt so much and the effort of speaking didn’t seem so herculean.

Herculean. Like Hercules. Perhaps he could have managed it, although she could not fathom a Hercules Mulligan who could not speak, let alone yell, even temporarily.

Alex rested his head on her shoulder, jolting her out of her thoughts, and continued his monologue into the crook of her neck. “I really don’t know why you and Jack made me go. You both know how useless Lee is. I would have been better off here.”

Someone – Jack, probably – scoffed from the other side of the room. Alex raised his head and shushed him. Eliza frowned; Jack was supposed to be her ally here. She levered her eyelids open again, fully intending to glare at him, but the clock on her desk caught her eye. The blurred, glowing numbers, which gradually came into focus, said it was 3:01.

Well. That was alright then. Eliza didn’t know how time – which had turned slow and syrupy days before – had slipped by so fast, but she was too tired to worry about it. Alex returned his head to its place on her shoulder and picked up his story from where he’d left off. “I might have made a new friend, though.”

Eliza lifted her hand to his hair and tried to run her fingers through it. The hair tie stopped her – he must’ve put it up – so she settled for petting the side of his head instead. Alex huffed against her neck. She flinched; it tickled.

“Sorry.” He murmured. “I mean, I’m sure that she probably wouldn’t say so, but as far as I’m concerned, positive interaction and friendship are pretty much the same thing.”

He had more to say, but Eliza was too tired to listen to it, and she drifted into full unconsciousness to the sound of Alex’s voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a tumblr now??? Or, at least, a tumblr that I am comfortable linking to my fanfic. It's holly-trees and it is both ugly and empty right now, since I just made it, but if you want to talk head-canons or, like, anything else, you should do that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's lateness is brought to you, in part, by me (knowingly) triggering myself with my own writing and then forgetting that I did that and spending the next day wondering why I was so upset for the second time in the past six months.

Alex woke up just after midnight on Saturday, shivering. Someone had kicked off the comforter and Eliza had rolled away from him. If he squinted, he could just make out her form on the other side of the narrow mattress in the greenish light from the numbers of her alarm clock. A cold that had nothing to do with the missing comforter seeped into his bones and forced him wide awake. All the air left his lungs and his throat closed and he couldn’t get enough air and –

Eliza wheezed and the tightness in Alex’s chest evaporated. He took a deep breath to steady himself, sat up, and took another.

 _It’s 2016._ He reminded himself, cradling his face in his hands. _I’m in New York. I’m with Eliza. Everything is fine._

Repeating _2016-New York-Eliza-2016-New York-Eliza_ to himself, Alex reached out and carefully laid a hand on her arm, starting when he found her skin clammy. Eliza whined and threw his hand off. He moved it to her forehead – just as sweaty and hot. She whined again and tried to roll away from him again. She didn’t get far before she hit the wall, but her message was clear. Alex removed his hand from her forehead to her apparent relief and worried his bottom lip between his teeth.

  
Jack woke to the buzzing of his phone. He picked it up and glared at the bright screen.

FROM ALEX  
12:16 AM  
totally hypothetical question, but  
how do you know if someone has a high fever?  
asking for a friend

He blinked, trying to process the information without much success.

TO ALEX  
12:19 AM  
w/ a thermometer???

Jack put the phone face down on the pillow next to him and closed his eyes. On cue, it buzzed again.

FROM ALEX  
12:20 AM  
without a thermometer  
unless you have a thermometer  
in which case,  
1 – you’re kind of a weirdo, who brings a thermometer to college?  
And 2 – could you bring it over here, please?  
because i don’t have one  
and eliza doesn’t have one  
at least, i don’t think she has one  
if she does, she’s hiding it really well  
it’s not in her first aid box or anything

Jack pinched at the bridge of his nose, trying to wake up all the way through willpower alone.

TO ALEX  
12:22 AM  
no, i dont have 1  
have u asked herc?  
he might

Sheer will failed to clear the drowsiness from his mind, so Jack reluctantly sat up, scooted down the bed towards the window, and pressed his cheek against the cold glass in the hopes that the shock might make the prospect of turning off his phone and going back to sleep a bit less inviting.

FROM ALEX  
12:23 AM  
i texted him but he hasn’t responded yet  
i texted laf too and they said that they didn’t have one and that herc was busy  
and probably wasn’t going to check his phone for a bit

Jack paused and listened. Over the regular noise of the hall on a Saturday night, he could faintly hear that Hercules was, in fact, otherwise occupied at the moment.

TO ALEX  
12:25 AM  
yeah, thats what it sounds like  
we can get 1 @ cvs in the morning  
pls go 2 bed

Jack detached his face from the window and flopped down on the bed, ready to go back to sleep. His phone buzzed again.

FROM ALEX  
12:26 AM  
but what if she has a high fever?  
what if it’s dangerously high?  
what if she dies and it’s my fault because i didn’t take her to the er?

Jack levered himself back up and tore off the covers, cursing himself as he pulled up his recent calls. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he should have _known_ that Alex wouldn’t let this go.

Alex picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hey.” Jack ran a hand through his hair or, at least, tried to. His hand got caught on a tangle near his scalp. “What’s going on?”

“Eliza’s got a fever.” Alex hissed.

“Yeah, I got that part.” Jack said. “I mean, what’s going on with you?”

“Eliza’s got a fever.” Alex continued as though Jack hadn’t spoken (or maybe he meant it as an answer. Jack’s head was too full of cobwebs to tell). “Eliza’s got a _fever_ and she’s not coherent and I know it’s probably just a normal fever but what if it’s _not_ and she – ”

“Alexander.”

Alex stopped short.

“Alexander.” Jack repeated. “Can you do me a favor? Can you sit down for me?”

“Okay.” Alex said after a pause.

“You’re sitting?” Jack waited for Alex’s uh huh before he spoke again. “Okay, now, we’re going to breathe together, all right?”

Alex uh huhed again and Jack led him through breathing in-one-two-three-four-five-six-seven, out one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven a couple of times.

“Okay.” Jack privately wondered if he ought to put on pants. It would save time later if he had to go over there, but if he didn’t, then it would be another step between him and going back to bed. “Are you feeling calmer now or do you want to do it again?”

“Calmer.” Alex did sound a little less frantic. “But I can’t stop thinking – ”

Part of Jack wanted to argue that that probably was a sign that they should probably do the breathing again, but the rest of him decided against it. “Okay, given that Eliza has a _cold_ , how likely do you think it is that her fever is dangerous?”

“Not very.” Alex admitted. “But I’d still like to _know_ that.”

Jack sighed. “Go ask her RA if she’s got a thermometer. If she doesn’t, we’ll go get one in the morning. But it’s probably just a normal fever and it sucks and all anyone can do is help her wait it out.”

“Okay.” Alex took a deep breath. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Jack laid down for what he hoped was the last time. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Alex inhaled again. “I think so.”

“Great.” Jack said. “I’m going to bed then. Good night.”

“Good night.” Alex hung up.

  
Eliza was too hot, too hot, too _hot_. A fire burned just beneath her skin and no matter what she did, she couldn’t get it to stop. She had kicked off her pajama pants earlier and that had given her some relief, but not enough and not for long. She fumbled for the edge of her tank top, intending to rip it off as well, but sweat stuck it to her skin and her clumsy fingers couldn’t seem to get it off.

Alex was talking, somewhere, and if she tried, Eliza could understand the words, but he seemed to be talking more to himself than to her and its significance paled in comparison to the suffocating heat.

She reconsidered that a moment later when she found his hands under her armpits a moment later. She struggled – didn’t he understand that it was too hot to be touching her? – but Alex hauled her into a sitting position regardless.

“I’m trying to help you.” He told her, amused. Eliza didn’t see how putting his scorching hands on her overheated skin could possibly help, but he coaxed her into swallowing something with a glass of water before she could say so.

“That should help with the fever.” Alex took the cup away and her fingers returned to the hem of her shirt. “You still want that off?”

Eliza’s eyes couldn’t focus on his shadowy form long enough to glare at him, but he seemed to understand.

“Okay,” Alex pinched the edge of her shirt between his fingers, “arms up.” He peeled the tank top off of her when she complied. It helped, a little, but not enough and Eliza wondered, nails digging into her ribs, if she could tear her skin off too.

“Still too hot?” Her blurry vision wouldn’t let her see Alex’s expression, but she suspected his mouth was twisted in sympathy. “Lie down, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.”

She did. When he returned, he asked her to roll over onto her stomach and brushed the hair away from the back of her neck. Eliza squirmed away from him as best she could – his hands were still too warm – but she didn’t get very far before he laid cold washcloth on the back of her neck.

“Does that feel better?”

Eliza nodded into the pillow. The bed sagged beneath Alex’s weight as he sat beside her.

“Good.” He wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger. “My mom used to do that for me when I was little.” Silence hung heavy in the air between them. Alex gave a sad little laugh. “Cools you right down, doesn’t it?”

  
Alex sat in Eliza’s chair, a new message to Jim open, but blank as he puzzled over what he could say to his brother.

“Hey,” he wrote, “we haven’t talked in a while. How are you? How are the air conditioners?” He reread it, cringed, and erased it. He tried a few other iterations, but none were any less awkward.

The numbers on the clock had just changed from 1:48 AM to 1:49 AM when a noise from the bed caught Alex’s attention. Eliza flipped over onto her back, throwing off the mostly-dry washcloth in the process, and curled into a ball, teeth chattering. Alex dropped his phone and rushed back to the bedside.

“Too cold?” he asked unnecessarily. Eliza jerked her head up and down. Alex couldn’t tell if it was a nod in response to his question or an extension of her shivering, but he retrieved the comforter and her pajama pants from the foot of the bed. In the dimness (he’d plugged her fairy lights in shortly after he’d woken up), he couldn’t find her tank top, so he snatched up one of his t-shirts lying on the floor and helped her sit up so that she could pull it on over her head.

Eliza lay down again and pulled the covers all the way up to her chin. Alex took the washcloth out from under the covers and hung it up on a hook.

“Still cold?” he asked the quivering mass hidden by the comforter. The mound jerked more forcefully. Alex took it as confirmation and picked the fleece blanket that normally lay at the foot of Eliza’s bed up off of the floor (she must have kicked it off earlier) and placed it over her. “Is that better?”

Eliza nodded and poked one hand out of her cocoon. She beckoned to him. When he got close enough, she wrapped her hand around his wrist and tugged.

“Okay, okay.” He crawled underneath the covers beside her. She let go of his wrist and grabbed the other, pulling his arm over her middle as she rolled over. Alex pressed himself against her back and let her wheezing lull him back to sleep.

  
Jack arrived at Eliza’s room with a thermometer at nearly eleven the next morning. The door swung open before he’d finished knocking, revealing a disheveled Alex, still in his t-shirt and boxers, half of his snarled hair hanging out of his ponytail.

“What took you so long?” Alex dragged him inside.

“It’s Sunday.” Jack explained, fighting off the wave of secondhand exhaustion he felt just looking at the bruise-like shadows under Alex’s eyes. “The bus schedule’s weird.”

Alex nodded, jerkily, and ran a hand through his hair, pulling the elastic out in the process. Jack pulled Eliza’s rolling chair over to her bedside and sat.

“How are you feeling?” He brushed a piece of hair out of her face.

She groaned, opening her bloodshot eyes.

Jack smiled sympathetically. “That good, huh?”

Eliza groaned again and threw her arm over her eyes.

Jack smiled and took the thermometer out of its packaging. “We’re going to take your temperature now, okay?”

She obligingly lowered her arm so that he could put the thermometer under it. For a moment, only the thermometer’s occasional beeps filled the room. Then, apparently satisfied that Eliza was under sufficient watch, Alex took his computer off of the desk and sat on the floor, back to the wall, and began to type.

“Jack,” Eliza rasped, “do you think you could – ”

“Oh,” Jack interrupted, surprised by the sound of her voice, “is your throat feeling better?”

Alex glanced up from his computer. “Do you need water? I’ll get you some water.”

Eliza glared at him, but it had no effect on the boy, who put his computer down and darted out of the room. Jack and Eliza shared a glance.

“Do you think he realizes – ” Jack only got halfway through his question before Alex’s return cut him off.

“I forgot the cup.” Alex explained, sheepish, and disappeared again. Eliza snorted and pressed her lips together, clearly trying to keep giggles at bay. Jack averted his eyes and bit his lip, struggling with the same task. Alex returned with the cup, this time with water in it. He placed it on the bedside table and wormed his way in between Jack and the table, moving to pull Eliza up into a sitting position, but Jack stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Don’t want to dislodge the thermometer.” Jack reminded him. As if on cue, the thermometer started beeping more insistently. Eliza removed it herself and Jack bit his tongue on the protest that it would be more accurate if she would just wait another minute.

“Surprise.” She croaked. “I have a fever.”

“Is it – ” Alex’s fingers flicked and he made to grab the thermometer before apparently realizing what he was doing and dropping his arm back to his side.

“It’s not too high.” Eliza handed it to Alex. He squinted at it and, apparently satisfied with the result, set it aside on the table and set to propping her up on her pillows.

Eliza sighed at the glass of water he placed into her hands. “Do I have to?”

“Yes.” Her boyfriends said as one.

“You need fluids because you’re sick.” Jack explained for the hundredth time in forty-eight hours.

“If the gallons of sweat you’ve produced in the past twelve hours are any indication, you are super dehydrated.” Alex attempted to sit on the edge of the bed, but Jack and the bedside table were both in his way.

“You’re so sweet.” Eliza rolled her eyes.

“You know me.” Alex apparently decided that he ought to sit farther down the bed at the same time that Jack decided to move down so that Alex could sit closer to Eliza, accidentally rolling directly into his way. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Alex’s tone was teasing, but Jack’s face flushed anyway. “I was trying to be helpful.”

“Well you’re not doing a very good job of it.” Alex pushed him back to where he’d been before and hopped up on Eliza’s bed. “You,” he tapped her sheet-covered leg, “need to drink your water.”

Eliza scowled, but took a gulp anyway.

“When I am better,” she told them, petulant, “I am never going to swallow anything ever again.”

Jack’s face flushed again and he bit his lip to keep from laughing. He didn’t dare look at Alex in case he’d had the same thought.

“Eliza,” Alex said, reasonably, “do you know who you sound like?” He paused to allow her to ask, but when she didn’t cooperate, he kept going as if she had. “You sound like Catherine. You know, from your church?”

Jack’s face heated even more and he ducked his head, hoping that his curls would hide his face. He’d been afraid that Alex’s mind had jumped to the same place his had, but knowing that Alex had instead thought of the four year old who had been one of Eliza’s campers over the summer was somehow so much worse.

“What would you say to her if she said that?” Alex said and Eliza must’ve taken another gulp of water, because Alex followed up with, “Now, was that so hard?”

“Yes.” Eliza muttered, then wove a hand into Jack’s hair. He startled and lifted his head up.

“What’s going on?” she asked. Jack swore inwardly; he should have known that his behavior would not go unnoticed.

“Eliza.” Alex inhaled deeply, a touch exasperated. “Please drink your water.”

“I’ll drink my water when Jack tells me why he’s acting weird.” Eliza placed the cup on the table and used her newly-freed hand to cup Jack’s face.

“It’s nothing bad.” Jack choked on the words, unable to meet Eliza’s concerned eyes. “It’s just, you know, you said the thing about not swallowing stuff and – and my brain went places it shouldn’t have.”

Eliza frowned, but Alex snorted behind him.

“Not bad, unhealthy places it shouldn’t have, I just – everything’s fine and I’m not unhappy, I promise, could you please drink your water now?” Jack finished, voice teetering into a whine.

“If you’re sure.”

Jack nodded eagerly and Eliza released his face to retrieve her water. She was halfway through swallowing when her eyes widened and she sputtered, spraying him in the face with water.

“John Laurens,” she gasped after swallowing what little water remained in her mouth, “John Henry Laurens, I cannot _believe_ – ”

“I know.” Jack buried his face in the sheet as Alex burst into laughter. “I’m sorry. I’m, like, twelve.”

“You had me so worried!” The cup clunked against the wooden surface of the table and she tugged at his hair. “You could have told me that you were just thinking about blowjobs.”

“I’m sorry.” He kept his face pressed against the sheet. “I was – I didn’t think it was appropriate.”

Alex’s laughter verged on hysterical and he toppled over with the force of it, hitting his head against the window in the process. To Jack’s disappointment, it didn’t put the slightest dent into Alex’s merriment.

“It’s not that funny.” Jack muttered, raising his head to glare at Alex. Eliza scratched his scalp in consolation, or maybe as a reward, Jack couldn’t be sure.

Alex shook his head, eyes bright and watering. “No.” he agreed, breathless. “It isn’t.”

“It’s too hot for you to be on my legs.” Eliza flexed her legs, trying to dislodge the boy. “Alex, get off. I’m too hot.”

Alex obligingly pushed himself off of the bed and onto the floor, still laughing. Something plastic crumpled underneath him.

“Oh,” Eliza said as though their boyfriend was not laughing himself sick on the floor for no real reason, “Jack. I meant to ask you earlier. Can you throw that away?”

“Oh, right, sorry.” Jack retrieved the plastic casing that the thermometer had come in out from under Alex’s back with no help at all, he might note, from the boy himself, who could not seem to stop laughing. Jack threw the trash away and then stood next to where Alex lay. He gave his boyfriend a critical look, then glanced at Eliza. She shrugged, eyes starting to drift shut.

Jack inhaled through his nose and knelt beside the other boy’s head. “Hey, Alex?”

“Yeah?” Alex turned to look at him.

“I think we should probably go back to your room now.”

Alex’s laughter cut out for half a second. “What?”

Jack braced himself. “I think we need to let Eliza rest and you need a nap.”

“No.” Alex wrapped a hand around the leg of Eliza’s bed. “I’m not tired.”

“You’re overtired.” Jack smoothed some of his hair out of his face. “You need to sleep.”

“I’ve been sleeping!” Alex protested, clearly fighting his laughter. “Ask Eliza, I’ve been sleeping!”

Jack glanced up at Eliza. She shrugged, eyes half-closed. “He’s been sleeping, but I kept kicking him out of bed last night. Don’t know how much sleep he got. I didn’t get much.”

“Come on,” Jack grabbed Alex’s free hand and pulled, “get up. Let’s go.”

Alex ripped his hand out of Jack’s and clung to the leg, his hysterical laughter devolving into plain hysterics.

“Alex.” Jack coaxed. “Come on. I’m sure Eliza wants to rest.”

“No.” Alex sobbed. “No no no no no, please don’t make me.”

Guilt hit Jack square in the stomach, nearly knocking him over with the force of it. _This is probably not about you._ He reminded himself. _Alex is overtired and anxious._ He bit his lip and glanced at Eliza again.

“I don’t mind if he stays.” She said, in response to his unspoken question.

Jack nodded and laid a tentative hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Alex?”

Alex flinched. “Please don’t make me – ”

“Alex, no one’s going to make you do anything, okay?” Jack swallowed the bile rising in his throat and the thoughts that said _stupid stupid stupid how do you always do this why are you so terrible_. They weren’t going to help him right now; he could wallow in them later. “Eliza says you can stay. You can stay if you want, okay?”

Alex relaxed by degrees as Jack rubbed circles into his shoulder with his thumb, apologizing over and over and over until Alex’s sobs subsided. Alex rolled over placed his head in Jack’s lap.

“Eliza?” Jack called, hoping desperately that she hadn’t somehow fallen asleep.

“What?” she didn’t sound entirely awake, but Jack didn’t think he’d woken her up.

“Could you give me the tissues?”

Eliza hit him in the face with the tissue box. Alex giggled.

“You didn’t have to hit me with them.” Jack grumbled as he pulled a couple of tissues out of the box and handed them to Alex.

“Sorry.” Eliza sounded more sleepy than sorry. “Didn’t mean to.”

Jack waved off her apology. Alex wiped his face and dropped the tissues on the floor.

“Pick those up.” Eliza mumbled from the bed.

“Yeah Alex,” Jack tried for teasing but sounded more strained than anything, “pick those up.”

For a terrible moment, Jack thought Alex might cry again, but the other boy only rolled his eyes and obligingly picked up the dirty tissues and dropped them in the trash.

“Are you going now?” Alex asked, stretching his arms over his head.

“Do you want me to?” Jack shifted off of his knees and winced when the blood rushed back into his lower legs. “I mean, I can stay, but I do have homework – ”

Alex shook his head. “Go do your homework. We’ll be okay here. Eliza looks about ready to pass out – ” he turned to the girl on the bed for confirmation, but her eyes were shut “ – and I have a paper to finish.”

“You sure?” He pulled himself to his feet, still cringing at the pins and needles in his legs, doubt creeping into his mind.

Alex smiled, nodded, and wrapped his arms around Jack for a moment. “I love you.”

Jack swallowed as Alex released him. “Love you too.”

He collected his things and headed out as Alex settled back into his corner with his computer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not 100% happy with all of this, but, you know, when am I ever. Also, I exist on tumblr at holly-trees, so if you want to come talk to me there, you should do that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took approximately twenty million years and it is SO LONG but neither of those things could really be helped. I wanted to get this up yesterday (well, let's be real here, I wanted to get this up long before yesterday, but yesterday was like, a hard deadline I set for myself) and I'm still not 100% happy with the whole thing - I might come back later when I'm not so sick of it and edit some or split this monster chapter up into smaller chapters, but it's done! Also, thank you so much to everyone who has commented - I know I let the whole "responding" thing slide a bit, but I'll try to catch up.

Eliza woke up on Monday morning with a clearer head than she’d had in nearly a week. She couldn’t quite breathe through her nose yet and her throat still felt sore, but when she risked taking a deep breath, she didn’t immediately start hacking her lungs up. She rolled over onto her back, eyes still shut, and stretched her arms above her head, smiling.

From her left came the unmistakable sound of someone blowing their nose. Eliza propped herself up onto her elbows and caught her boyfriend standing over the trash bin with a tissue pressed to his face. She sighed internally.

“How are you feeling?” her voice scratched against the inside of her throat but, given how it had felt for the past week, she readily conceded that it could have been much worse.

Alex started, jerking the tissue away from his face like it burned, and – bless him – balled it up into his fist and attempted to stuff it into what would have been his pocket if he wasn’t still in his boxers instead of dropping it into the bin.

“Fine.” His voice had a rough edge that Eliza didn’t like (or, rather, did like, but also signaled that dealing with Alex was about to get more difficult than usual). “How are you feeling? Do you need – ”

“Don’t stop blowing your nose on my account.” She interrupted, eyeing the snot still running out of Alex’s nose with distaste.

“I wasn’t – ” he protested. Eliza raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay.” She pushed herself into a real sitting position. “Then if you could wipe the mucus that mysteriously got on your face off and put the dirty tissue that somehow ended up in your hand into the trash, I would really appreciate it.”

Alex glared at her half-heartedly and did as he was told. Eliza swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, holding onto the edge of the mattress for balance. As if on cue, Alex turned to face her and opened his mouth.

“I’m feeling better.” She told him before he could get any words out. “I think I might go to class today.”

Some muscle in Alex’s face she hadn’t even realized was tensed relaxed. “Really?” he asked, coming to put a hand on her back to support her as she wobbled away from the bed. “Are you sure? You were pretty badly off last night.”

Eliza shrugged. “I think that was the worst of it, honestly. I’m just kind of tired now, but I think a shower will help with that.”

“Well,” Alex shifted from foot to foot, “if you’re okay here, I think I’m going to go change clothes and stuff.”

Eliza pulled Alex’s t-shirt off over her head. “Sounds good to me.”

Alex busied himself with collecting his things as Eliza undressed and found her shower supplies. He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot when he was done. “So I’ll see you later then?”

“Of course.” She pressed a kiss to his lips. “Have fun in class.”

Alex smiled as she walked out of her room. “Have fun in your shower. Don’t drown!”

“I won’t!” she called back over her shoulder.

“Don’t faint either!” he followed her into the hall.

“I’ll do my best!” And with that, Eliza disappeared into the bathroom.

 

Jack arrived at the only café on campus five minutes before four. He ordered and received his hot chocolate without incident, all the while scanning the room for his partners. When he failed to find them, Jack shrugged – he must’ve beaten them here – and settled into their usual corner with his drink, spreading his belongings out to guarantee them both chairs.

He kept his eyes fixed on the entrance as he alternated between trying to sip his still-too-hot hot chocolate and blowing on it to cool it off. As the minutes ticked past, Jack felt increasingly uneasy. He tried to reason with himself that perhaps Eliza and Alex were running late, but hadn’t told him because Franklin usually kept his class late; they had no way of knowing that the professor was going to show up obviously hung over and more interested in facilitating a discussion about the purpose of science and scientists in the world if they couldn’t make farts smell better than lecturing on ocean currents.

After the third person in so many minutes asked if they could borrow one of the chairs and Jack had explained with an increasingly strained smile that he was waiting for people, he pulled out his phone and opened a new message.

TO ALEX, LIZARD

4:19 PM

r we still on 4 coffee?

He slid his phone back into his pocket and resigned himself to waiting for a while for an answer. Maybe, he thought, he would never get an answer. Maybe this was Alex and Eliza’s subtle way of breaking up with him. Maybe he’d fucked up so badly the day before that neither of them could stand the sight of him. Maybe –

His phone buzzed, cutting off that train of thought.

FROM LIZARD

4:22 PM

I’m afraid not

SOMEONE has decided that it is Nap Time, not Coffee Time

Jack inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to focus on the relief flooding through him and not the additional panic that he had fucked up yet again.

TO LIZARD

4:23 PM

shit sry

i 4got that ur sick

FROM LIZARD

4:24 PM

I’m feeling a lot better, actually!

I mean, I’m tired, but

I would much rather be having coffee with you than having naptime

And if SOMEONE hadn’t decided that naptime NEEDED to happen on top of Eliza

I would be there right now

That said

Would you like to join us?

Jack inhaled again and downed the rest of his hot chocolate before pulling on his coat, gathering his things, and sending a reply to Eliza.

 

Someone knocked on the door. Eliza sighed as best she could with Alex’s entire body crushing her and turned her head to face the door in the quickly-fading afternoon light.

“It’s unlocked!” She called, desperately hoping she was right – God knew she couldn’t get up to open the door if it wasn’t and after all that she and Alex had put Jack through over the past couple of days, he deserved better than being stranded outside.  The door opened and Eliza would have sighed in relief if not for the weight on her torso. Jack smiled and shut the door behind him.

“You can see why I couldn’t meet you for coffee.” She gestured at Alex, who snored against her chest, unrepentant.

Jack snorted. “I can.”

He had something of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Eliza huffed at him, or at least tried to. “Would you like to join us? We could all play Squash Eliza Like A Tiny Bug. If you ask nicely, Alex might let you use the other boob as a pillow.”

“Sounds tempting, but I prefer my Elizas unsquashed.” Jack let his bag drop to the floor and climbed over his partners’ bodies so that he could squeeze in between them and the wall. Eliza attempted to shift over so that he could have a bit more room, but Alex’s weight pinned her in place. Jack laid an icy hand across her forehead and frowned when she flinched. “How are you feeling?”

“Well I was doing just fine until some jerk decided to put his cold hands all over my face.” Eliza teased.

Jack raised an at her. “Sure that isn’t the fever talking?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have a fever. My forehead feels warm because _you_ forgot to put your gloves on.”

Jack opened his mouth to argue, but Eliza pushed his hand off of her forehead and, with some effort, onto his own. He winced and she released his wrist, letting her arm drop off of the side of the bed again. “See?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He muttered, resting his head against her shoulder. “You were right, I was wrong, All Hail the Lizard Queen.”

“Am I a queen now?” She asked the ceiling. “I thought I was just a regular lizard. When did I get promoted?”

Jack snorted, resting his hand on the top of Alex’s head. “Well, you’ve always been an important lizard, you know, _the_ lizard. Makes sense that you would rule them eventually.” He squirmed a bit until his head was completely onto the pillow and pressed his nose into Eliza’s neck. She didn’t start at the coldness, but it was a near thing. “But really, how are you feeling, O Queen of All Lizards?”

Eliza giggled. “This better not become a thing. You can’t make it a thing.”

“Oh,” she couldn’t see Jack’s eyes roll, but she didn’t have to, “like you didn’t start the whole ‘Lizard’ thing in the first place.”

“Listen, sometimes we’ve had a long week and it’s past midnight and we say some things – ”

Jack half-laughed, half-groaned. “Eliza, you know your parents sat me down and asked me to stop calling you names over Christmas, right?”

“Sorry, dear.” She said. “Although, you know, I _did_ explain it to them.”

“I know. I appreciated it.” Jack left a moment of comfortable silence. “But for real, how are you feeling?”

Eliza wished that she could stroke his cheek without putting either of her arms into an awkward position, but since she couldn’t, she settled for covering Jack’s hand resting on top of Alex’s head with one of her own. “Better. Tired, but better.”

Jack nodded, curls tickling her neck, and patted his boyfriend’s head, lifting Eliza’s hand with his. “And what about this one?”

“Well,” Eliza moved her hand off of Jack’s so that she could stroke Alex’s hair, “he came in here at three? Three thirty? And collapsed and went right to sleep almost immediately. However, as I have been reliably informed, he is not sick, even though he definitely appears to be.”

Alex, apparently not quite as asleep as she’d thought, shifted and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “not sick.”

“What was that?” She asked. Alex mumbled again, trying to burrow into the space between her breasts.

Jack tugged gently at Alex’s hair. “Speak up, darling. We can’t hear you.”

To Eliza’s relief, Alex lifted his head up and rested his chin on her sternum, eyes half-closed, pouting. “Not sick.”

Jack laughed. Eliza pressed her lips together to keep from joining in while Alex glared at his boyfriend.

“I’m not.” He whined, petulant. “I’m not sick. Eliza, tell Jack that I’m not sick.”

“No, of course not, dear.” Eliza cupped his face in her hands. “You always spend Monday afternoons sleeping on me and your nose just happens to be stuffed.”

“See?” Alex told Jack, who promptly buried his face into the place where her shoulder met her neck. Alex blinked at him for a moment, then turned to Eliza. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No.” Eliza struggled to keep from giggling as she brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Of course not.”

“I think you’re making fun of me.” He narrowed his eyes. “Besides, it’s not like I’ve got homework.”

“No?” Jack asked. “What about that paper for GWash?”

Alex groaned and dropped his head to her chest again.

“I’m pretty much done with that.” He told him while Eliza attempted to pry his head off of her. “I mean, my conclusion needs some work, but we’ve got until Friday.”

“Okay,” Eliza said when physically pushing Alex back up failed, “come on, Alex, get up.”

He grumbled, but allowed her to pick his head up off of her chest. “Why?”

“You’re not falling asleep on me again.” Eliza stuck one arm under Alex’s shoulders and tried to hold him up that way while Jack carefully squirmed down to the end of the bed, where there was more room, and sat up. “As much fun as I had being squished like a bug, I would like to do other things with my evening.”

“You’re not a bug.” Alex muttered as he rolled off of her and directly into the wall. “You’re Lizard. Supposed to _eat_ bugs.”

“Yes, dear.” Eliza slid off of the bed. “Whatever you say, dear.”

But Alex, given the entirety of the bed, rolled back over, buried his face in the pillow, and went off to sleep.

“Well,” Eliza turned to Jack, “should we go get that coffee, or do you want to just skip to dinner?”

 

Alex woke on Tuesday morning to an empty bed and a head stuffed full of cotton balls. Eliza had left a sticky note on her bedside table that read “Went to class! Probably won’t be back until after statistics :) Please consider staying home if you don’t feel well” which was sweet, but she had clearly forgotten the stomach virus incident if she thought that Alex was going to stay home for himself. He dragged himself out of bed, pulled on yesterday’s jeans, and gathered up his things.

He was back in his building and up two flights of stairs when he remembered that he probably wasn’t going to have to try to sneak by Hercules and sighed in relief, which quickly turned into a series of coughs. Alex sank down to sit on the stairs, one hand on the railing, the other covering his mouth, and listened to his hacking echo up against the walls of the stairwell, praying that he was right and Hercules was in class. No matter how quiet Alex tried to be, his R.A. seemed to have some kind of superpower that told him exactly when Alex was coming in or out of the hall (especially if he wasn’t “dressed appropriately for the weather”), but Alex was pretty sure that it only worked when Herc was on the hall as well.

Hercules appeared to be out, but Lafayette’s door was half-open, much to Alex’s dismay. He walked by the door at a normal pace, holding his breath, hyperaware that creeping or sprinting by would attract more attention than he really wanted. When he was safely inside of his own room, he exhaled slowly to keep himself from coughing. He glanced at his bed, which was covered in dirty clothes. He’d meant to wash them on Thursday morning, but he’d gotten distracted by a report about the way the U.S.’s budget was allocated and spent the rest of his time before and between classes fuming about military spending. Even with the lumpy layer of last week’s laundry blanketing the bed, the thought of lying down, just for a minute, appealed to his heavy limbs, but Alex shook himself and turned away from the bed.

He didn’t look at the bed again, angrily insisting to himself that he was _fine, fine,_ not _tired,_ not _sick, just fine_ , except to put his recently discarded clothes onto it and to salvage a pair of relatively clean jeans from it. (It was a _system_ , he’d explained to Eliza a thousand times. If he put his dirty clothes on his bed, he couldn’t go to sleep, which would _force_ him to do his laundry. The system, he admitted to himself, was not perfect and hadn’t accounted for emergencies or the chance that he might spend the better part of a week sleeping in someone else’s bed.) He raked his fingers none-gently-through his hair, hoping that the slight pain would make him more alert. When that didn’t work, he sighed and pulled his hair back into a ponytail. His throat caught on the edge of the sigh and he coughed loudly before muffling the sound in the crook of his elbow.

After he finished, he stuffed his books into his bag and walked back down the hall, hyper conscious of his pace and fighting the itch in his legs that told him to run, run, run past Lafayette’s still open door every step of the way. He didn’t dare breathe until he successfully made it down the first flight of stairs, when he gave into the burning in his lungs and took a giant, greedy gulp of air.

In a twist that no one, Alex was sure, had seen coming, this was apparently more air than his fussy lungs could handle and they set out on another round of coughing. He covered his mouth, but didn’t sit, stumbling down the stairs as quickly as he could. He couldn’t afford to sit, he told himself when blackness crept around the edges of his vision. If he sat, Lafayette would catch up with him and make him skip class. Never mind that he had no reason to believe that Laf was following him or even knew that he had been there; Alex was not going to take any chances until he was well away from the dorms.

He came to a stop in the hall outside of his classroom, leaning heavily against the wall, and pulled out his phone to check the time. _11:30_. He slid down the wall to sit on the floor, sighing, which quickly turned to coughing. He had time; his English class wouldn’t start for another half hour at least. He could probably use it to tweak that conclusion for Washington. He was going to pull his computer out of his bag in just a second –

A gloved hand gripped his shoulder and shook. Alex started and the hand released him.

“Hey,” said a girl he vaguely recognized from his class, “we can go in now.”

He summoned up the best approximation of a smile he could manage when he felt as though he was watching the world from the end of a tunnel and hauled himself to his feet.

“Thanks.” He rasped. She grimaced, opened her mouth to say something, and shut it.

“Yeah, no problem.” She tossed the words over her shoulder as he followed her into the room.

Alex made it through English without much incident. No one sat next to him and he had to keep retreating to the bathroom to blow his nose, but he stayed awake the whole time and partway through class, while the professor was droning on about Werther’s sympathetic qualities, he discovered that he still had a travel mug of coffee in his backpack. He took a sip and winced when he remembered that the coffee in the mug had been there since Thursday at best.

He took his next sneeze as an opportunity to pour out the rest of the coffee in the sink. After class ended, he swiped into the dining hall to refill his mug and then headed to his next class. He sat down in the empty room and pulled out his computer. _1:33_. He could definitely finish rewording the conclusion before class.

Or, well, he could if the words would stop fucking _swimming_ and if he could just fucking _focus_ , but after ten minutes of trying to force his eyes and brain to cooperate through sheer force of will, he admitted defeat, slamming his laptop shut and shoving it into his bag. He buried his head in his arms and kept it there as people trickled into the room. He didn’t raise it when someone sat down in the chair to his left and coughed politely.

“Um, Alex?” Aaron drew the words out like they felt odd in his mouth. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Alex grunted.

“Okay.” Aaron busied himself with pulling something – probably his notebook – out of his bag. “Just thought I’d check.”

A small part of Alex wanted to thank him for making such an overt gesture of caring and generally not being a robot, or at least say something snide about it, but it was a very small part and the rest of him, which wanted to never pick up his head ever again, outvoted it.

Someone sighed loudly on the other end of the room, followed by a familiar giggle.

_Fuck._

It had somehow not occurred to Alex that he shared this class with Laf and Jack. Hopefully, it was too late now for either of them to physically force him to go back to his room if they wanted to be in class on time, but he hooked his feet around the leg of the table just in case.

Someone dropped into the chair on his right and sighed again.

“Alexander – ” Jack began.

“No.” Alex whined into the table. “I’m not sick.”

Jack sighed again. “You keep saying that.”

“Yeah.” Alex grumbled. “Because I’m _not_.”

“Why do you have that?” Aaron asked before Jack could respond.

Jack set something down near Alex’s ear. “It’s orange juice? I’m drinking it? That’s normally what people do with orange juice.”

Aaron paused. Jack laid a hand on Alex’s arm. “Listen, Alex – ”

“Let me rephrase.” Aaron interrupted. “Why do you have a half-gallon of orange juice?”

“I’m…drinking it?” Jack repeated. “I don’t really see what your question is.”

“Yeah, but why are you drinking a _half-gallon_ of orange juice?” Aaron enunciated his words carefully.

“Because orange juice has vitamin C and vitamin C is good for your immune system and I don’t really want to get sick right now.” Jack rubbed at Alex’s arm. “Speaking of which, Alex – ”

“The whole thing?” Aaron asked, scandalized. “You’re going to drink the whole thing?”

“ _Yes_.” Jack snapped. “Honestly, Aaron, why do you care so much?”

“I don’t. I was just curious.” If Alex wasn’t mistaken, Aaron almost sounded a bit sulky.

“Okay.” Jack inhaled deeply through his nose, hand pressing into Alex’s arm. “In the future, can you try to be curious about stuff when I’m not in the middle of a conversation?” Aaron must have shown some kind of assent, because Jack turned his attention back to Alex. “Listen, Alex – ”

“I’m _fine_.” Alex grumbled just as the chatter in the room abruptly cut out, rendering his voice louder than he’d intended. He lifted his head to see Washington stalk to the front of the room.

“Well, don’t stop on my account.” The professor said half to himself as he arranged his things on the table. “I’ll just need another minute to set – ” his gaze drifted to Alex’s side of the room and he stopped short. “Son.”

The whole class shifted uncomfortably and someone across the room smothered a giggle. For a moment, Alex thought he would strangle Lafayette, but then remembered that Laf was sitting on the other side of Jack. He couldn’t focus his eyes enough to figure out who had actually giggled, which put a damper on his whole strangling plan, but Alex was what his elementary school teachers had called “determined, but too aggressive” and he would figure it out.

“You all can keep talking.” Still facing Alex’s side of the room, Washington straightened up, abandoning his attempts to set up his computer. “It’s going to be another couple of minutes.”

Alex entertained a brief but vivid fantasy that Washington was looking at Jack and his half-gallon of orange juice, not him, and that he was about to interrogate his boyfriend in much the same way that Aaron had.

Washington stopped directly in front of him, resting his hands on the table and crushing all of Alex’s hopes and dreams.

“Son, are you alright?” He leaned down, concern evident in his eyes. Chatter resumed uneasily on the other side of the room. Out of the corner of Alex’s right eye, he could see that Aaron had suddenly become very interested in reading his own notes. On his other side, Laf rambled on, tugging at Jack’s arm while he pretended not to eavesdrop.

Alex gritted his teeth, irritation welling up inside of his chest. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Washington snorted. “Son, the last time you said that to me, you were leaning over a trash can, just about to vomit.”

“Yeah.” Alex rasped, suppressing a cringe at how weak his voice sounded. “I’m not vomiting though. I’m fine.”

Washington sighed. “Son – ”

“Don’t call me son.” Alex snapped.

For a moment, the professor seemed taken aback, but he recovered so quickly that Alex couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t just imagined it. Washington shook his head slightly. “Go home, Alexander.”

“Professor – ” Alex started, but it was futile; there was no mistaking the order in his voice.

“Go. Home.” Washington’s eyes bored into Alex’s own. Alex broke first, sullenly packing up his bag.

“Your absence won’t count against you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Washington said, tone softening. “I’m sure someone – ” he glanced meaningfully at the boys on either side of Alex “ – could volunteer to take notes for you and I’d be happy to give you an extension on the paper.”

Alex’s mouth tightened. He was dimly aware of saying something appropriate in response, but something spiteful curled up beneath his ribs as the professor retreated back to the front of the room. He didn’t need an _extension_. He didn’t even need to go home. Washington must think that he was pathetic.

“Please don’t take that as a challenge.” Jack whispered as Alex shrugged on his coat. “You said you needed to rework your conclusion.”

Alex scowled while he pulled his backpack on and stood.

“Love you.” He muttered.

“Love you too.” Jack smiled and glanced meaningfully at the door. Alex huffed and obeyed, ignoring his classmates’ staring.

 

“And then I realized I’d been going the right way all along, so I had to get off the tube _again_ and wait another ten minutes at that goddamn station so that I could get on the train I’d been on in the first place.” Angelica’s face froze on the screen, mouth oddly contorted, and the picture went grainy.

“You’re stuck again.” Eliza giggled, half at her sister’s story, half at the image of her screen.

Angelica sighed, but her face remained unmoving. “Do I at least look pretty?”

Her sister’s snort was all the answer Angelica needed. “You’re not going to take a screenshot, are you?”

Eliza didn’t respond; she was too busy doing just that.

“Eliza,” Angelica’s face finally unfroze, “I swear to God – ”

“It’s so beautiful.” Eliza laughed. “I should put this on facebook so that everyone can share in this moment.”

Angelica narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’ll even tag you.” Eliza smiled at the deeply unimpressed look on her sister’s face. “Fine, fine, I won’t post it.” She waited for a hint of relief to creep into Angelica’s features. “But I am going to email this to Peggy.”

Angelica rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I called you ‘the kindest person I know’ in my college application essay.”

Eliza blushed and sent off an email to both of her sisters with the screenshot attached.

“You’re adorable.” Angelica told her. Eliza muttered a “shut up” and pulled out her phone to text Peggy, telling her to check her email. Just as she finished sending that off, another text came in.

FROM JACK

2:12 PM

pls dont let alex turn his paper in rn

Eliza frowned, puzzled.

“Is everything alright?” Angelica asked.

“Yeah, I just – hold on.” Eliza wrote her reply as quickly as she could.

TO JACK

2:13 PM

I won’t, I guess

Aren’t you in class right now?

“Sorry, Jack sent me something weird.” She explained.

“Weird how?” Angelica tilted her head to the side. The picture froze for a split-second, mid-tilt. Someone knocked on Eliza’s door, interrupting her before she could even open her mouth to tease Angelica about the face she’d been making.

“Sorry.” Eliza dropped her phone, which buzzed, onto her covers and pushed the computer off of her lap. “Hold on. Someone’s at the door – ”

“I heard.”

“ – and I should probably go see what they want.”

“Maybe it’s the Girl Scouts.” Angelica called after her. “If it’s the Girl Scouts, I want Thin Mints.”

Eliza smiled, shaking her head, and opened the door. It was, predictably, not the Girl Scouts; Eliza didn’t think that they normally sold cookies inside of college dorms; certainly, _she_ had never done that. Instead, her boyfriend stood outside with a red nose and sullen frown.

“You realized you were too sick to go to class and decided to come cuddle instead?” She guessed hopefully.

“No.” Alex sighed, then began to cough. She pulled him inside by the arm he wasn’t covering his mouth with. “Washington told me I was too sick and sent me home.”

She firmly quashed her disappointment. She hadn’t really expected anything else. “Well, I’m skyping with Angelica right now, but I’m sure she’d be happy to see you too.”

Alex nodded and slid his backpack off. “I just need to do something first.”

“Is it turning in your paper?” Eliza asked sharply. “I’m under firm instructions to not let you do that.”

Alex shifted guiltily. She herded him to the bed.

“Did you get me my Thin Mints?” Angelica’s voice drifted out from the computer’s speakers.

“I’m afraid not.” Eliza pushed Alex up to sit on the bed and placed the computer onto his lap.

“Alex!” Angelica’s face lit up.

He leaned back into the pillows and smiled, eyes only half open. “Hi.”

“It’s good to see your face.” She said, slightly subdued, but still full of warmth.

Eliza leaned across Alex to retrieve her phone, realizing that Angelica probably hadn’t seen Alex’s face since she’d left them all standing outside of airport security. She had “2:00 – skype with Angelica” written in sparkly, pink gel pen in every single Tuesday box in the calendar hanging on the wall, but she’d never stopped to consider that Alex and Jack didn’t have the same opportunity. She straightened. “Angelica, tell him about your date with John while I go make tea.”

Alex opened his mouth to protest, but Angelica had already launched into the story of how she had gotten hopelessly lost on the London Underground and showed up forty-five minutes late. Eliza pressed a kiss to his forehead, grabbed the kettle, and scurried out of the room.

While she waited for the kettle to fill, she checked her phone.

FROM JACK

2:14 PM

im in the bathroom rn

gonna go back 2 class tho

TO JACK

2:25 PM

Don’t answer this now, but do you think you could pick up some more tissues for me when you get out of class?

I’d do it, but I don’t think Angelica would be all that happy with me if our skype date turned into a “babysit Alex while Eliza runs errands” date

She slid her phone into her bra (she really was going to have to invest in more clothes with pockets) and swore when she saw that the kettle was overflowing. She turned off the faucet and tipped the excess water out before carefully drying the bottom with the hem of her shirt.

She returned to her room and set the water to boil before prodding at Alex until he scooted to the side, computer still firmly in his lap, so that she could sit beside him. She rested her head against his shoulder and tuned back into Angelica’s monologue just in time to hear “I mean, the date itself went pretty well, I guess. He was very nice about the whole lateness thing and we laughed about how if cell phones didn’t exist, he would have thought that I’d stood him up, so that was nice. He’s not exactly eloquent, but not everyone can be Alexander Hamilton, you know.”

In a stunning show of eloquence, Alex grunted.

The kettle _ding_ ed and Eliza hurried over to deal with the tea.

“So what’s the matter with you, then?” Angelica asked.

Eliza didn’t have to turn around to know that Alex was scowling. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” She didn’t have to see her sister either to know that she had an eyebrow raised.

“Don’t listen to him.” She handed the mug to Alex and got him a tissue for the mucus bubbling out of his nose. “He’s probably got whatever I had.”

“Does he need to go to the doctor?” Angelica pursed her lips.

Eliza shook her head. “I had a cold, so probably not.”

Angelica eyed her sharply. Eliza sighed and raised her hands up in surrender. “I know, I know, that’s what I said, but they insisted that it was just a cold, and I believed them.”

Angelica huffed and muttered something unkind about someone – Eliza suspected doctors or the medical establishment in general. Alex wiped at his nose and dropped the tissue on the bed. She raised her eyebrow at him and he dutifully picked it up and threw it in the direction of the trash can. It landed on the floor beside the trash instead of in it. Eliza decided that was close enough.

Angelica had to go shortly after that, because apparently “SOME complete fucking ASSHOLE needs to download the ENTIRE INTERNET right now” which was slowing her connection down.

“Sorry about intruding on your sister time.” Alex mumbled from the bed as Eliza opened her psychology textbook.

“You weren’t intruding.” Eliza reassured him as she wrote the heading of the chapter into her notebook. “God knows I didn’t have much to tell her.”

Alex hmmed. She sighed and looked over her shoulder at his twisted face. “Alex. Sweetheart. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Alex hmmed again. She swiveled her desk chair around to face him. “I mean it. Being sick isn’t a moral failing or whatever.”

He gave her a strained smile and placed his mug down on the bedside table. “Am I allowed to do my reading or am I banned from that too?”

Eliza heaved a sigh and suppressed a smile. “I suppose you can do a little bit of your reading.”

By the time Eliza had finished taking notes on the chapter, Alex was snoring gently from under his economics textbook.

 

Alex woke up just after midnight, shaking. Apparently, he had kicked off the comforter during the night since Eliza, who lay on the other side of the narrow dorm bed, was still completely covered in the purple and white checked fabric. Alex didn’t know how she could stand it – the room was sweltering even without the added layer. Unless –

 _No._ The sensible part of his brain snapped as he choked down the bile rising in his throat. _It’s not happening again._

He clenched his jaw shut against the next wave of nausea that swept over him. He fixed his eyes on what he could make out of Eliza’s form in the dim, greenish light from the glowing numbers of the alarm clock. She didn’t move.

Alex inhaled sharply as best he could with the ever-growing tightness in his chest.

 _She’s been feeling better._ The sensible part of his brain reminded him, sounding fainter than before. _Everything is probably fine._

Alex held himself completely still, waiting, but he could not hear anything above the pounding in his ears. Without his permission, his left hand reached out to touch Eliza and stopped a few inches short, hovering. He didn’t really want to touch her. He didn’t want to know if her cooling flesh felt any different than Mom’s had. He drew his hand back as tears sprung to his eyes, blurring the sight of her. He wiped them away angrily with one hand. It wasn’t _fair_. She’d been feeling _better_.

But then again, so had Mom.

Alex choked on a sob and rolled over, away from the body next to him. To his surprise, he landed onto the laminate floor.

 

Eliza woke up to the sound of a crash right next to her bed, bolting upright before her eyes were all the way open. She pressed one hand over her pounding heart and glanced to the left. Alex wasn’t beside her. She blinked, unsure of how to process that information, when a choked, rasping sound from the floor caught her attention. She scuttled over to the side of the bed and peered over the edge. It was too dark to make out much in the way of shapes, but if she squinted, she thought she could see Alex’s shaking form curled into a ball.

“Alex?” she asked. “Is everything okay?” she winced internally. _What a stupid question._ She thought. _Obviously, everything is not okay if he’s sobbing on the floor._

Alex whimpered something that might have been “no, no, no”, but it didn’t sound like the answer to her question.

She tried again. “Alex? Sweetheart?”

The only response something that suspiciously like “not again, this can’t be happening again”, but it was hard to tell what exactly he had said between heaving sobs.

“Is it okay if I turn some lights on? Not the overhead lights, just the fairy lights.”

If he gave any indication of a preference either way, Eliza couldn’t see it. She gnawed on her lip. She didn’t want to assume that he was fine with it when he hadn’t given her an opinion, but the light would give her a better idea of what was going on. She crawled to the end of her bed and leaned down over the footboard and plugged them in.

“Is that okay?”

Alex, head buried between his knees, writhed inconclusively. Eliza slid off of the end of the bed and onto the floor next to him. He gasped something, but the only word Eliza could make out was “Mom.”

_Shit._

“Alex?” She forced her voice to remain steady and calm. “Alex, sweetheart, can you hear me?” She caught herself just before she wrapped a hand around his ankle. Jack found touch grounding during a flashback, provided it was gentle and limited enough that he didn’t feel trapped, but Alex had never said anything similar. She didn’t know what would help him during a flashback. Hell, she hadn’t even known that he _had_ flashbacks.

“Alex.” Eliza pushed the nagging worry of “oh God, oh God, what if I’m making everything worse” away. It wasn’t going to help her right now. It certainly wasn’t going to help her boyfriend either. “It’s 2016. You’re in New York. You’re with Eliza. You’re okay.”

On the fourth repetition, her words finally seemed to cut through his panic. He lifted his head and blinked at her, eyes bleary. “Eliza?”

Eliza smiled, hoping that the expression was at least halfway encouraging. “I’m here.”

Alex lifted one arm up, grabbing at air. “Can I – ”

Eliza put her hand into his, praying that she had guessed correctly. Evidently, she had, since Alex squeezed and then pulled himself up.

“Can I – ” he asked again, eyes uncertain and darting from one side of Eliza’s head to the other, never quite landing on her face.

“Whatever you need.” She assured him, but she was still not totally prepared for Alex to fling himself into her lap. She uncrossed her legs as best she could under his weight as he wrapped his arms around her torso.

“I thought you were _dead_.” Alex buried his face into her shoulder. Eliza leaned back against the bed, mindful of her boyfriend’s skull and stroked the back of his head. “You weren’t moving and I couldn’t hear you breathing and I thought you were _dead_.”

Eliza murmured reassuring nonsense into his ear, wrapping her other arm around his shoulders.

“I was so _scared_ all week that you getting sick would be like Mom all over again and I told myself that it wouldn’t happen again but then it _did_ and – ” Alex’s monologue climbed towards a wail.

“I’m not dead.” Eliza reminded him gently, glad he couldn’t see her frown. Something here didn’t fit; she could have sworn that Alex’s mother had died of a heart attack. At least, that was what he had told her grandfather at Christmas Eve dinner after the man had finished interrogating Jack about where his family was.

“She died. Heart attack. It was very sudden.” He’d said, almost aggressively casually. “It was a long time ago though. I was, like, twelve. It’s fine.” He’d interrupted the condolences with a shrug and an edge to his voice that said it was not even a little bit fine, but he’d like it if everyone could just shut up and move on now.

 _Now,_ Eliza told herself firmly, _is not the time._ When Alex was not still reeling in the aftermath of a flashback, she could ask questions. Instead, when his sobs began to subside, she asked “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Alex shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Do you want to call Jack?”

He sniffled. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Okay.” Eliza waited a moment. When her boyfriend didn’t move, she added. “My phone is on the bedside table.”

“Okay.” Alex tightened his grip around her waist. Eliza sighed, feeling impossibly fond.

“That means that you have to get off of me so that one of us can go get it.”

“No.” Alex lifted his head from her shoulder and pouted at her.

She shook her head. “If you don’t get up, we can’t call Jack.”

“Fine.” Still pouting, Alex extricated himself from her lap. “Can you – sorry, I know this is dumb, but can you come with me?”

“Do I have to get up or can I crabwalk beside you?” Eliza winced as feeling started to come back into her legs.

Alex snorted. “You can crabwalk. I just need, you know…”

Eliza patted his calf and nodded. Alex mumbled something that sounded like “thanks.”

She hadn’t really thought the whole crabwalking-with-half-asleep-legs plan through, as it turned out, so instead she clung to his leg and made him drag her with him all the way (a whole three feet) to the bedside table.

“Peggy and I used to do this to Angelica, when she first started going to kindergarten without me.” She kept a hand wrapped around his ankle as he sat down on the bed with her phone. He laughed.

“I’m sure she loved that.” The phone bathed his face in blue light. “Is it okay if I call him?”

“Sure.” Eliza rested her head against his leg. “Whatever you need.”

 

Jack was doing his best to explain the math homework to the octopus scuttling around in the sand beneath his feet when an angry cloud of bees began to descend. Jack frowned. They were underwater – why were there bees here? Only the sound wasn’t bees at all, he realized as he opened his eyes to the darkness of his dorm room. It was coming from the window sill.

He picked up his phone and squinted at the name of the caller, trying to remember why a lizard would be calling him and why the lizard hadn’t given him a name to put in his contacts. The phone kept buzzing.

He answered it. “Hello?”

“Hi.” Alex rasped on the other end before Jack could say something stupid like “do you need help with the math homework too?”

The sound of his boyfriend’s voice shook him out of his dream. Jack pushed the covers off and leaned his cheek against the cold window, hoping to wake up all the way. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“I – I don’t know. I just – freaked out, I guess, and – I don’t know.” Alex paused. “I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have called. Did I wake you up?”

“Yeah.” Jack mumbled, face still smashed against the window pane. “Don’t worry about it though.” He added before Alex could start beating himself up for it. “What’s up?”

“I – I – I kind of had a panic attack, I guess? Cause I – ” Alex cut himself off with what sounded like a suppressed sob. “Can you, can you come over here? I don’t really want – ”

“Yeah.” Jack peeled his face off of the window pane and kicked off the covers. “No problem. I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”

“Okay.” Alex paused, like he hadn’t been expecting him to say yes. “See you in a bit?”

“Yeah, see you in a bit.” Jack stuffed his feet into the first shoes he found lying on the floor and the line went dead. He pulled his coat on and made it most of the way down the hall when Hercules appeared, arms crossed, eyebrow raised.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Hercules asked.

“To Eliza’s?” Jack racked his slow, syrupy brain. “Is that – is that not allowed?”

“Not when you’re dressed like that, it’s not.” Hercules sighed. “Jack, it’s _February_.”

“I’m wearing a coat!” Jack protested, abruptly realizing that he was not wearing gloves and surreptitiously slipping his hands into his pockets.

“Yes, and we’re all very proud of you.” Hercules said. “But Jack, it’s _fifteen degrees below freezing_. It is too cold to go outside without pants.”

Suddenly, Jack was hyper aware of the air on his bare legs. “Right.” He retreated back to his room. “Thanks, Herc.”

“Anytime.” Hercules called back down the hall.

Jack knocked on Eliza’s door roughly ten minutes later, after finding a pair of jeans in the dark and pulling a shirt over his head (backwards, if the scratching at his throat was any indication).

“Come in.” called Eliza softly from the other side.

He tried the handle. “It’s locked.”

“What was that?”

He briefly considered raising his voice, but remembered the time and the way that noise travelled up and down the hall and pulled out his phone to text Eliza instead. A few moments later, the door opened, revealing Eliza holding her phone in one hand, grinning. Her other hand lay on top of Alex’s arm, which was wrapped around her waist. Alex stood behind her, face buried into her neck.

“Look at us goddamn millennials, texting instead of talking to other human beings.” Eliza, still grinning, stepped out of Jack’s way and onto Alex’s feet as Jack slipped into the room and shut the door.

“Well, I didn’t want to wake up your entire hall at – ” Jack checked the clock “ – nearly one in the morning on a Tuesday by yelling.”

Alex mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “technically, it’s Wednesday” into Eliza’s shoulder. Jack paused, shoe half off. “What’s that, darling?”

“Nothing.” Alex raised his head, revealing reddened eyes and snot smeared across one cheek. “Nothing important anyway.”

Jack nodded, stripped off his coat and shirt (the tag was really starting to bother him), and hopped up onto the bed. Eliza and Alex followed, Eliza snatching the tissue box on her way over.

“Do you want to talk about what happened now?” Eliza laid one hand on Alex’s knee while discreetly cleaning off the mucus on her shoulder with the other.

“Yeah.” Alex mumbled, wiping his face with a tissue. “I guess I should probably explain what the fuck happened there.” He took a deep breath, coughed a bit, and then forced all of his words out at once. “So, uh, I woke up tonight and you weren’t breathing except obviously you totally were I just couldn’t hear it and uh, itremindedmealotofmymom’sdeathcauseshewassickandIwassickandthenshedied so I flipped the fuck out and, yeah, that’s what was going on there.”

Jack’s brow wrinkled in confusion. He shot a glance at Eliza, who was also struggling to keep the puzzlement off her face. Alex was glaring determinedly at a fixed point on the floor in a way that suggested that he was trying very, very hard not to cry.

“Well,” Eliza’s hand moved from Alex’s knee to his arm, “I’m not dead.”

“No.” His voice cracked. “I noticed.”

Jack wrapped an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders and pretended that he couldn’t feel them shaking. He pressed a kiss into the sweaty hair above Alex’s temple. He waited until the shaking subsided before he asked. “Can I be a dick for a second?”

He didn’t have to look up to know that Eliza was glaring at him over their boyfriend’s head, but Alex only shrugged. “I guess.”

“How did your mom die?” Jack could practically hear Eliza’s teeth grinding. “I’m only asking” he continued hurriedly “because you told everyone at Christmas that it was a heart attack, but just now it sounded like it was maybe a disease or something, and I want to know the truth so we don’t fuck things up accidentally.”

“Not” Eliza added on “that you would have been wrong to lie at Christmas. Frankly, you would have been within your rights to have told Grandad to fuck off, since his questions were entirely inappropriate and I’m surprised that nobody else told him that he was crossing the line.”

“I’m so glad you’re over that. It would be a shame if you were still angry about it almost two months after Christmas.” Alex rasped. “But yeah, to answer the question, both…both are true.” He took a deep breath. “I…when I was twelve, Mom caught the flu and I caught it from her. My brother had to go stay with our neighbors and I ended up sleeping in her bed so that we’d have fewer sheets to wash when it was over. It – it wasn’t, like, life-threatening or anything. We weren’t going to die from it. It was just, you know, miserable. And Mom seemed to be getting better and she was getting better faster than me and then one day I woke up and she – ” he choked. “ – she wasn’t breathing and I was too sick to find the phone so no one knew until our neighbor came by to check on us and – and – and – ” Jack wrapped his other arm around Alex’s waist and Alex sagged against him. “And I _know_ that she didn’t die cause she was sick, like, I _know_ that it was just a coincidence, but – ”

“But it’s hard to remember that when someone gets sick.” Eliza finished softly.

Alex nodded, furiously wiping at his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” Jack squeezed Alex. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s fine.” Alex blew his nose with a tissue that Eliza must have produced from somewhere. “You deserve to know, anyway.”

Jack chewed on the inside of his lip, trying to find a way to phrase “yeah, but I didn’t want to make you _cry_ when I asked you for details of your mom’s death” that didn’t make him sound like an idiot.

“While we’re asking potentially insensitive questions,” Eliza laid her head down on top of Alex’s shoulder and Jack’s hand, “Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier? I can’t speak for Jack, but I knew that _something_ was bothering you all week, I just couldn’t tell what. Maybe we could’ve helped.”

Alex sighed. “It’s going to sound dumb.”

“It can’t possibly be as dumb as the time I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling so sensitive after talking to my dad.” Jack said. “Also, can we lie down or something? It’s hard to hold up the weight of both of you.”

Alex snorted. When everyone had rearranged themselves so that they were all lying on their sides, wedged into the small space between the edge of the bed and the wall, Alex finally spoke. “It sounds dumb, but I think I just forgot to tell you and I wasn’t – I wasn’t making that connection at the time and when I was, it wasn’t a good time or something.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, I must’ve been so annoying and anxious.”

“It’s okay.” Eliza said sleepily. Jack, half-asleep as well, hummed and rubbed Alex’s shoulder.

Alex paused, before he added. “I really am, though. Sorry, I mean.”

“Alexander.” Eliza almost whined. “It’s really okay. Just go to sleep.”

If Alex said anything after that, Jack was too asleep to hear it.

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to writelikeitsgoingoutofstyle for basically holding my hand through this entire process and making me publish this and giving me a title because I am a small anxious perfectionist bug who hates titling things and needs constant validation to survive. I literally could not have done this without them.


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